With Netflix’s New Star-Studded Game Out Now, Was Sony Ahead of the Curve with PlayLink?

You may have seen – or already played – the new Netflix horror game Unhinged, starring big Hollywood names like Zoe Kravitz and Sadie Sink.

It’s just the latest sign that Sony is very much in competition with video streaming platforms, as anything competing for your entertainment time is a rival to the PS5.

The interesting thing to me is that this game – played with your smartphone – is something PlayStation was exploring long ago.

Some of you may recall PlayLink on the PS4, a series of titles all designed to be played with your mobile phone.

It included some social quiz games like Knowledge Is Power, but Supermassive Games – the makers of Until Dawn – also released Hidden Agenda for it, a narrative-based story game where you made decisions on your phone, similar to Unhinged.

The tentpole title for the initiative was intended to be Erica, the psychological thriller starring Holly Earl. It re-emerged in 2019 without the PlayLink integration included – Sony had moved on by then – but had similar ambitions to Unhinged.

Obviously the big differentiator for Netflix here is the relative ease of access: 100s of millions of people have an account with the streaming service, and the vast majority of them will own a smartphone. That makes it pretty accessible.

I think it’s also worth acknowledging how some mainstream audiences may be deterred by traditional controllers like the DualSense. Yes, gaming is more ubiquitous than it’s ever been, but there are still plenty of people turned away by analogue sticks and shoulder buttons; a touchscreen phone is much more palatable.

And I wonder how concerned Sony is about this. Obviously I’m not in any way suggesting Netflix is going to become a gaming powerhouse overnight – but like I mentioned previously, it’s already stealing entertainment time from the PS5, and if it can deliver meaningful gaming experiences as well as TV shows and movies then that’s got to be a threat.

As has often been the case over the years, I think Sony identified all this a decade ago when it started work on PlayLink, but it never really followed the idea through.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on Unhinged to see how well it’s received, and what it means for the PS5 if Netflix becomes a genuine player in the gaming space as well.