Netflix's New Horror Game Unhinged Takes Just 40 Minutes to Beat

June 24, 2026 - 05:27

I started and finished Netflix's next video game in a hotel room in Manhattan last week. It took me less than an hour. I died twice.

The game is called Unhinged, and if you have learned anything about what Netflix has been doing with video games in the last few years, unlearn that. This is not a mobile game offered as a free perk to subscribers. It is not a game aimed at little kids. It is also not one of Netflix's party games streamed from servers to smart TVs.

Unhinged is a first-person suspense game with decent 3D graphics that you could imagine playing on a PS4 or PS5. But you do not use a controller. You use your phone as a combination flashlight and in-game phone. The graphics stream to your TV. The virtual phone interface streams to your phone.

You play as a woman named Ava, voiced by Zoe Kravitz, who is trapped in her apartment building during a hurricane. Her neighbor is not answering their door. Someone else is creeping around. Something is very wrong. Ava stays in touch with a friend through her phone as she tries to escape.

To play, you point your phone at the screen like a flashlight. Where you point, the in-game beam shines. You help Ava see, and you point at what you want her to interact with. Your phone also displays a fake phone interface where Ava receives calls and texts.

The real-phone-as-controller-as-fake-phone interface is clever. Moving a real phone to simulate a flashlight feels like a descendant of Wii motion games. The director, Sam Warner, cited a design trick from Ubisoft's Wii launch game Red Steel, where players held the controller to their ear to hear commands through the speaker. That was magic, Warner said, and that inspired them.

A team of 20 developers at Netflix-owned Night School worked on Unhinged for about 18 months.

The biggest novelty is its brevity. Netflix argues it will help get more people to play games. Sean Krankel, head of Night School, said the vision was to take people who love horror films and bring them closer to interactivity. The most daunting thing about games for many people is not just the skill threshold but the time investment. If people expect 30 minutes to an hour of a show, this fits inside that.

Unhinged will be available in Netflix's Games section on June 30. There are no sequels locked in. But the question remains: what if the secret to getting more people into video gaming is to put shorter single-sitting games in front of them?