18
votes
Netflix pulling its last two interactive specials – ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ and ‘Kimmy Schmidt’
Link information
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- Authors
- Denise Petski,Natalie Oganesyan
- Published
- May 10 2025
- Word count
- 358 words
The whole interactive stack was just a mess, from the marketing to the backend from what I've heard.
On the marketing/usage side, they should have devoted to this to an entire new section of their apps, and been the Netflix Games that they keep trying to bring to fruition, instead of focusing on 'legacy' styles of gaming, they should have been trying to 'redefine' the entire thing in their style, ie movies, shows, and the format.
If they had focused on it, it would have been a major success in so many categories and been the defining difference between them and the rest of the streaming services. Whoever decides to properly integrate and bring this to the public is going to absolutely dominate.
"Choose Your Own Adventure" shows is such an obvious way of moving forward in this industry, and I just can't get why they haven't even given it a solid try.
If you make consequential choices available to the users, sequels become harder and harder. Given how important brand recognition is in what people choose to interact with, it is a very risky move.
That being said, I seem to recall liking Bandersnatch as a concept though I have absolutely no recollection of the story. I think I played through a lot of the paths.
A lot of video games with consequential choices and multiple endings get around the issue by simply choosing a canonical ending for the sequel and continuing from there. And the canonical endings are often amongst the worst of the possible outcomes just to keep things even more interesting and challenging in the sequels.
Depends on the type of story and plot. Just look at non-serial TV shows: every episode is a different adventure, you can have totally unconnected plots that still leave a strong impression on the viewer. The main continuity that would need to be preserved is ensuring the recurring characters don't die or significantly change—and even then, you can work around that such as one character always somehow reverting by the next episode with no explanation.
I remember spending 3 or 4 hours going through as much if Bandersnatch as I could with my wife. It was enjoyable, but after the first run through and a couple of branches, it got more and more boring. The choices became less consequential, and it just felt like editing room floor material that got thrown in. It felt like it could have been more enjoyable cut into a sizzle reel that took far less time.
That said, my daughter played through some interactive cartoon with an ogre that seemed pretty fun for kids. Animation definitely pent itself more to the format than live action.
I don’t remember much of the story but I do occasionally remember the guy breaking the fourth wall to tell me the choice was really bad
CYOA is a specific kind of narrative which has its place but it is most certainly not the way of moving forward in this industry. Closed narratives allow for a much greater degree of focus, control, sophistication, detail, and characterization, with greater emotional engagement.
Regular narratives remain profoundly engaging and are preferred by most people. That is true for every media and even in videogames most narratives are linear.
The most obvious way going forward is most certainly the continuous refinement of linear narrative.
If any company could’ve made it work, it would be Netflix or Disney.
This type of content has been tried before and it just isn’t taking off. I think I even remember DVDs with it. It just isn’t appealing to most people. I therefore don’t think it’s the obvious way forward. I don’t see it ever becoming popular.
I played/watched both of these when they came out. Bandersnatch was the only one I liked and really the only one I think that utilized the interactivity well with its self referential and fourth wall breaking story.
I suppose in a way Bandersnatch will no longer be accessible. Even with pirating surely you can’t recreate the necessary software.
I haven't tried it, but this got posted on the Reddit thread for the same topic: https://mehotkhan.github.io/BandersnatchInteractive/
Gotta pirate the full movie file, but can't imagine that will be too hard. At least it's preserved.
For anyone else out of the loop:
I'm amazed the article doesn't even have a link to what they are talking about. Maybe it's pushback against the overabundance of seo optimized content out there. What is cheese? Is cheese bad for you? Is cheese good for you? Does cheese cause cancer? Can I use cheese to repair my leaky roof? How can I tell if I have real Parmesan?