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Netflix Games is set to launch two new mobile games, Katana Zero from developer Askiisoft and Dumb Ways to Survive from Playside, beginning their rollouts onto the service beginning with the Philippines, with more regions expected to get the games in the near future.
The soft rollouts onto Netflix follow in the footsteps of other recent releases by Netflix, such as Hades, which had a soft launch in the region and had a beta period with select testers before its global launch. This is likely to catch any last-minute bugs and test infrastructure to avoid any major disappointments, such as last year’s Samurai Shodown and WrestleQuest, which both launched in sub-optimal conditions, leading to their removal.
What You Need to Know About Dumb Ways to Survive
Number of players: Single-player
Offline play: Yes
Cloud saves: Yes
Let’s begin with Dumb Ways to Survive, which is a new single-player game that Netflix describes: “Dumb Ways to Survive is a silly and satisfying roguelike survival adventure game that will test your skills to see if you’ll die a dummy or use your smarts to survive. Working hard as a cute, hapless explorer Noob, players will collect, harvest and hunt their way through the wilderness as a bumbling bean trying to stay alive.”
For those unfamiliar with the backstory to Dumb Ways to Survive, it’s quite an interesting tale. Metro Trains Melbourne first launched a Dumb Ways to Die video and campaign in 2012 to promote rail safety, which became a viral sensation on YouTube and other platforms. To date, that main video has over 300 million views with the channel it self having over half a billion.
It’s spawned several other titles, including three mobile currently available to play: Dumb Ways To Die, Dumb Ways To Die 2: The Games, and Dumb Ways To Die 3: World Tour.
What You Need to Know About Katana Zero
Number of players: Single-player
Offline Play: Yes
Cloud Saves: Yes
Already available on consoles and PCs is Katana Zero, which will be making its way over to mobile courtesy of Netflix Games. The official Netflix description of the game is as follows:
“Kill your enemies or face instant death. Slow down time as you slash and dash through a dystopian city to unravel past secrets in this retro adventure.”
When the game was first released back in 2019, IGN’s review was glowing for the action-packed game. The game scored an 8.7, with critic Mitchell Saltzman saying, “Katana Zero’s adrenaline-pumping action is incredible, and its presentation is stellar, but its story feels cut short.”
Here’s the official Netflix game trailer for Katana Zero, which debuted at Geeked Week in late 2023.
Both games have been on the upcoming roster for some time, and Netflix has confirmed that they will be released in 2024 as part of the Next on Netflix Games roster.
We’ll update this post once the two games are fully rolled out. We have contacted Netflix and an external PR company to request more information on these rollouts and will let you know if we hear back.
Netflix’s mobile game collection, once these two titles have been added, will stand at 94 individual titles. New titles released so far in 2024 include the iOS release of Hades, Game Dev Tycoon, Rainbow Six: SMOL, Pinball Masters, FashionVerse, and Money Heist: Ultimate Choice.
Will you be watching Katana Zero or Dumb Ways to Survive on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below.