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In early December, news broke that Spry Fox, one of Netflix’s earliest acquisitions in the gaming space, would no longer be under the Netflix umbrella, with the founders taking back the reins and the company’s future in their hands. In a new blog post today, David Edery (also known as Chedd in the community) has revealed future plans for their ambitious Spirit Crossing, which will remain on Netflix along with their other games, but will also expand to other platforms.
It has been three years since Netflix acquired Spry Fox as its sixth internal games studio to bolster its growing library of mobile titles. Now, the studio founders have confirmed that after a rapid three-month “sprint” of negotiations, they have bought the studio back.
According to the studio, the spinout was a necessary move to survive a bleak period in the gaming industry. To make the buy-back happen, the studio’s founders, David Edery and Daniel Cook, have taken significant personal financial risks, including reducing their own salaries to just $20,000/year and utilizing their own cash reserves.
The move allows Spry Fox to restructure its equity, giving the majority of ownership to the studio’s employees rather than executives, a rarity in the current gaming landscape.
What Happens to Spirit Crossing?
The studio is currently deep in development on their most ambitious title yet, Spirit Crossing, a “massively social” cozy game aimed at combating loneliness and fostering community.
Good news for Netflix subscribers: despite the split, Netflix remains a partner. Spry Fox confirmed that Spirit Crossing is still coming to the Netflix Games service on mobile and will remain free for members, and is available for users to test now.
However, independence allows the studio to expand the game’s reach. To ensure the game can thrive for decades, Spry Fox plans to launch the title on additional platforms and implement a sustainable business model outside of the Netflix ecosystem.
The studio is aiming for a public beta in Spring 2026 with a full launch eyed for late 2026.
Furthermore, the blog post also touched on Spry Fox’s existing library. The developers feel that Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit—which launched exclusively on Netflix—didn’t get the exposure it perhaps deserved. As a result, the independent studio is now working to bring the title to PC and consoles in the near future.
We were also able to ask David some questions about the future of their studio and the project as it pertains to Netflix:
Can you rewind back to 2022 for me? Can you talk to me about just before you got acquired by Netflix – what were the conversations and what ultimately got you over the line in joining Netflix?
That’s a long story! The very short version is: initially, Netflix reached out to do a multi-game publishing deal with us. But the kinds of games we’ve been making as a studio lately are larger games with longer development times, so when I thought about a multi-game commitment, it meant such a long term relationship with Netflix that I basically just said “if you really want to do multiple games with us, maybe we should be talking about an acquisition instead of a publishing deal.”
You have to keep in mind that the 2020-2022 were really frothy years in the game industry. Tons of acquisitions were happening, and the valuations being offered to independent developers were compelling. It was almost impossible to be running a studio and not have in the back of your mind the possibility of an acquisition.
And Netflix was to our minds a fantastic acquirer. We really liked all the people we knew there. They were offering us a chance to stop worrying about monetization and focus purely on fun. And I’m personally a super-long-time Netflix customer. So… why not give it a shot?
Spirit Crossing has been unusual in the way Netflix develops and releases games, with a long testing period with the game in a much earlier state than others that have launched. Was that always the plan to have you developing in conjunction with user testing and playing? What has been the most common piece of feedback from Netflix users?
We always intended to have a long testing period for Spirit Crossing, yes. It is a very ambitious and highly original game. Anytime you make a game like this, you have to assume there’s going to be all sorts of technical problems and design problems that you’re going to have to work through. And the best way to work through those problems is with a live audience. In my experience, the more new things you’re trying to do in a game – especially an online multiplayer game – the more time you’re going to have to spend iterating on it before you release it. And there’s a lot of new things we’re doing here. Like putting people in persistent villages and neighborhoods, using a “sortition government” system in neighborhoods, and procedurally generating the game’s wilderness area.
Picture courtesy of SpryFox
You plan to make the game available on more platforms, which will require a different business model – how hard will it be to keep the games on par with each other across platforms? How do you approach this?
We’re still working through the details of this; I don’t have anything concrete that I can share right now. Whatever we do, it’ll be done with the intention of offering players a great experience, no matter who they are or where they are playing the game.
Can you provide any insight into what the conversations were like at Netflix when you were speaking about going independent?
It really all came down to Spirit Crossing. When we joined Netflix, we thought it was the perfect home for this game, but as time went on it became clear that Spirit Crossing (as an extremely social game about making and playing with friends) was a lot more likely to succeed if it could be a multi-platform game available to anyone who wants to play it, and our colleagues within Netflix agreed with us about that. Spirit Crossing will still be a Netflix game, so we get to have our cake and eat it, too, in this situation.
Do you have any perspective on Netflix’s Gaming initiative over the past few years? We know there’s been a lot of changes in direction and strategy – what can you tell me about the current sentiment and direction there?
I think my friends at Netflix are very excited about what they are working on and its potential. Personally, I’ve been really enjoying their new cloud games; I play Boggle almost every night with my wife and daughter. Since I’m no longer a Netflix employee, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to inject my personal opinions about their strategy or anything else going on there internally, so all I will say is that I believe in those folks and I think they are going to ship some really delightful games.
Finally, you’ve also got Cozy Grove on Netflix – will these remain on the service for the foreseeable future, and do you plan any additional updates?
Yep! Camp Spirit will remain on Netflix for the foreseeable future. That’s all I’ll say for now.
Cozy Grove Camp Spirit Netflix Games
With thanks to David, and if you haven’t already, go and try Spirit Crossing – it’s one of the most unique experiences you’ll play on Netflix right now.
