Netflix shuts down AAA “Team Blue” SoCal gaming studio

One of Netflix’s most intriguing video game studios is no more.

The company’s Southern California game studio, one of a handful of inside studios collectd by Netflix in recent years as part of its expansion into video games, has been shut down, Game File has lacquireed.

The studio, also understandn as team “Blue,” seemed poised to fracture the mgreater of what Netflix is doing in gaming. Early hints about the team’s labor adviseed it was pursuing a huge-budget multi-device strategy, meaning the advertised edge of Netflix’s initial mobile-intensifyed expansion.

As proof of that, Team Blue had made some splaworried employs in the past two years:

In postponeed 2022, Netflix wooed Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny from Blizzard to erect its SoCal studio. (Sonny had stints on Call of Duty and Sony Santa Monica before that).

In spring 2023, Netflix’s SoCal studio compriseed Joseph Staten, a lengthytime creative guide on Microgentle’s Halo franchise at Bungie and 343 Industries. Staten was exiting the Xbox camp for Netflix to labor “as creative straightforwardor for a brand-recent AAA multiplatestablish game and distinct IP,” he said at the time. That transfer was expansively covered in the gaming press, a sign that Netflix was very solemn about this gaming skinnyg.

That same spring, Team Blue also recruited art straightforwardor Rafael Grassetti, who had proximately a decade of experience at Sony Santa Monica where he’d most recently been the God of War studio’s overall art straightforwardor. 

As of October 2024, however, Netflix has shut down Team Blue and all three of those huge employs are no lengthyer at the company, a company rep validateed to Game File.