Netflix announces new game studio led by ‘Overwatch’ executive producer

Netflix has announced that it will be launching a new game development studio which will be led by Overwatch executive producer, Chacko Sonny.

During the TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 event yesterday (October 18), Netflix’s vice president of games Mike Verdu shared the news of the new California studio, which is currently unnamed (via VGC).

“We are starting another organic new studio in Southern California, this time around Chacko Sonny, who oversaw production on God of War Ascension for Santa Monica and oversaw a portfolio of their games, and then was executive producer of a little game franchise called Overwatch,” Verdu said.

“He could have gone anywhere, he could have raised money, he could have done anything and he chose to come here. We are building a team around him and looking to him to reinvent what games can be.”

Chacko Sonny left Blizzard Entertainment in September 2021 in order “to take some time off.” He worked at the company for five years from 2016 but didn’t become an executive producer on the Overwatch franchise until 2018. It was unclear at the time what next move Sonny would be making, but now it’s confirmed he’ll be heading Netflix’s new studio in Southern California.

“You don’t get people like that coming to your organisation to build the next big thing in gaming unless there’s a sense that we’re in it for the long haul and the right reasons,” Verdu continued, who also added that Netflix plans on featuring third-party games on its service.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Netflix would be adding almost 50 mobile games to its service in 2022. One of the latest titles to be announced was Immortality, the interactive film video game from Sam Barlow.

Despite Netflix’s growing interest in gaming, it was revealed that less than one per cent of Netflix’s 221million subscribers play its games.

In other news, the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC system requirements have been confirmed.