Flashspoter - Spry Fox's departure from Netflix marks a major shift in the strategy of the company's gaming division. The Studio, known through Cozy Grove and Alphabear, was officially sold back to its founders, David Edery and Daniel Cook. The move sees Spry Fox return to operating as an independent company, but retaining a partnership with Netflix as the publisher for the mobile version of their latest Game, Spirit Crossing.
This transition is quite unique when compared to some of the other studios that were previously under Netflix Games. Two internal studios, Team Blue and Boss Fight Entertainment, have closed completely and are no longer developing new projects. Spry Fox retains access to its main projects and has the discretion to seek other publishing partners for future console and PC releases.
Spirit Crossing itself was first introduced in early 2025 as a social game with an MMO approach that combines elements of life simulation and online community experience. The project is known to be developed under the codename Project Friendship and is designed as a cooperative game with the theme “village life sim”. In its initial phase, Spirit Crossing is available in the form of alpha playtest and has passed 100 thousand downloads on the Google Play Store. The beta launch is said to be planned for 2026, indicating that developers are still preparing for a long-term development cycle even though it is no longer fully under Netflix.
Spry Fox's return to being an independent studio brought a number of practical consequences. According to The Game Files report, the studio's continued operations are likely to require additional funding. This change in business structure also has the potential to affect the design direction of Spirit Crossing, especially so that the game remains a self-sustaining source of revenue outside of initial support from Netflix. The point is that Netflix's way of releasing games is usually very limited in terms of subscribers and this kind of release is not always suitable for other platforms.
To give an example, in October 2022, Netflix itself acquired Spry Fox, just a few months after it bought Night School Studio, the creator of Oxenfree. Spry Fox under the leadership of Netflix, launched Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit in 2024, the next episode of the Cozy Grove series which is known for its gentle visual style and the immersion in relaxing experiences. Given such a history, Spirit Crossing can be considered the biggest project of the studio during its collaboration with Netflix.
However, Netflix's gaming strategy underwent a significant shift since 2024 when Alain Tascan took over the leadership of the gaming division replacing Mike Verdu. Under Verdu, Netflix acquired many studios, funded original projects, and launched a variety of non-IP mobile games. Tascan brings a new, more focused approach to Netflix'S IP-based games, social party games, well-directed narrative work, as well as family-friendly titles. This change in strategy makes some projects no longer in line with the company's priorities, and Spirit Crossing falls into that category.
Besides that, the shift return of a fight surrounded the internal conflict of the Netflix gaming division. In 2025, the closure of Boss Fight Entertainment, the developer of Netflix Stories and Squid Game: Unleashed, came as a surprise. A few of the films have been scrapped in which they were participating, among which is Dungeon Boss: Respawned. Meanwhile, Next Games in Finland, one of Netflix's early acquisitions, is still actively developing several Netflix Entertainment-based social games. Night School Studio also stayed after the release of Oxenfree II, although there are no public details about the next project yet. Netflix is also building new in-house teams such as MoonLoot Games, which is currently still hiring.
With the exit of Spry Fox, the state of the Netflix game landscape shows massive consolidation. The company now appears to be focusing on a more measured direction based on its own intellectual property. Nevertheless, Spirit Crossing is still one of the important projects that remains on the company's radar, at least in the mobile version.
The decision to let Spry Fox return to independence while maintaining publishing relationships provided an opportunity for the studio to expand Spirit Crossing's reach. If they successfully find more partners, the game can be available on different platforms and attract more users. From an industry perspective, the decision sheds more light on the fact that Netflix is changing the way it works while still giving the green light to the projects that are not fully compatible to continue outside of its own internal ecosystem.
Source Engadget, Game files, What's on Netflix, Variety.
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