The Best Games to Play on Netflix Right Now

Netflix may still be the first name that comes to mind when you think about streaming a movie or TV show, but in recent years the streaming service has also made its way into the gaming realm. In fact, your Netflix subscription comes with access to a pretty great selection of games, with one small caveat: you have to play them on your phone or tablet.

While these may not be many people’s favorite gaming platforms, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great options for how to while away your time on Netflix before you find your next favorite show. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best games on the platform and broken them down into categories to help you know which ones are best for you:

This category is for more traditional mobile games, generally games that have already been released in the app stores. In other words, if you’re looking to supplement your other phone games with your Netflix subscription, this is the perfect category for you.

A light remix of the classic Snake formula, Snake.io throws you into a random lobby with dozens of other players all competing to be the biggest snake and eat everyone else. It’s a great time and can be surprisingly immersive, especially if you’re good enough to rule over all the smaller snakes in your lobby.

A classic tower defense, Bloons Tower Defense 6 offers a ridiculous amount of upgrades to earn and levels to play, all to stop the evil balloons from reaching their destination.

A spin-off of the excellent roguelike Scoop Knight, Pocket dungeon is a roguelike puzzle game in which you must help Shovel Knight make his way through various levels full of enemies and dirt, all of which are equally dangerous.

These are solid games that don’t really feel like mobile games, but still work pretty well on the platform. They’re mostly (but not all) narrative games, and they offer great experiences that rival the best of Netflix.

Ghost Apparition is a beautiful game about ferrying people to the afterlife. It’s a gentle, beautiful game where most of the gameplay revolves around carefully stacking things on your boat, but the real star of the show is the endearing characters.

Kentucky’s Route Zero is a great adventure game that is more or less about the strangest road trip you will ever take. The game mainly follows a truck driver trying to make a delivery, but the real draw is the occasional stop on the side of the road to have conversations with some of the most unique and fascinating characters ever created for a game.

Created by the developers of the awesome roguelike FTL, Into the breach is a fantastic turn-based strategy game about managing your army of mechs and sending them out on missions. The only caveat here is that this game is easily the most challenging of all the games on this list.

Make no mistake, this is a category full of good, sometimes great games… but they’re also games that we can’t give a full recommendation for (mostly) because if you’re playing them through Netflix, you’re playing them on a mobile device, and these were games designed for other platforms. Luckily, your subscription also allows you to download games whenever you want, so you might as well give the titles on this list a try and see if the slightly compromised controls bother you. Or if you have a controller that works with bluetooth, connect it to your phone and enjoy.

Netflix gives you access to Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice CityAnd Grand Theft Auto: San Andreasall the great games on consoles and in their own rights, but the touchscreen controls are a big ask of these already buggy remakes. But with GTA 6 It’s almost here, so it’s a good time to pick up the series again.

A great puzzle platformer with fantastic gameplay and story twists, braid works well enough on a phone to make it worth it.

A tricky game under the best of circumstances, the touchscreen controls are a bit much for this 2D roguelike Metroidvania gem. That said, if the controls work well for you, it’s one of the best games Netflix has to offer.

One of the best roguelikes of the decade, Hades’ Excellent characters and graphic design, combined with inventive weapons and precise combat, made it an instant classic when it released in 2021 and it has not diminished with age.

This one handles fine, but the tricky part is that it’s still Football Manager. You probably already know if you’ll like this one just by the title. If you’re not sure, you can try managing your own football team and leading them to a Champions League title or World Cup glory.