Netflix has spent years expanding beyond streaming, but its latest experiment might be one of its strangest, and most interesting, yet.
Launching tomorrow (June 30), Unhinged is a new interactive thriller from Night School Studio, the team behind Oxenfree and Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, designed to blur the line between watching and playing, rather than handing players a traditional controller, Unhinged turns your phone into the centre of the experience.
The setup feels deceptively simple:
You play as Ava (voiced by Zoë Kravitz), who finds herself trapped inside her apartment building as a Category 5 hurricane cuts power and isolates everyone inside, her only connection to the outside world is Claire (voiced by Sadie Sink) calling from across the street.
Unhinged ‘Game trailer’ Netflix
Unfortunately, the storm isn’t the real problem
As the blackout stretches on, the building begins to feel increasingly wrong. Locked exits, unanswered doors and growing signs that somebody (or something) else may still be inside push the experience away from disaster thriller territory and straight into psychological horror.
What separates Unhinged from most interactive experiences is how it uses your own device to sell the illusion, after launching through Netflix, players scan a QR code to connect their phone, which becomes Ava’s flashlight and communication device.
Calls, texts, vibrations and audio all play directly through your handset while environmental sound stays on the TV, creating an experience designed to feel uncomfortably close to home.
Players can choose between Story Mode for a purely narrative experience or Standard Mode, where timed decisions and environmental scanning can determine whether Ava survives the night.
A stacked creative team
Netflix has also assembled a stacked creative team behind the scenes, alongside Kravitz and Sink, acclaimed voice actor Troy Baker plays apartment super Ben. Audio duties come from award winning composer Jason Hill (Mindhunter, Gone Girl), while veteran sound designer Ren Klyce (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) helped shape the game’s atmosphere.
Whether it lands as the future of streaming or simply a fascinating experiment, Unhinged arrives tomorrow with one clear goal, make you think twice before turning the lights off.
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