You Can Play the New Game in ‘Black Mirror’—and It’s an Adorable Nightmare

When Charlie Brooker’s Netflix series about tech-driven dystopias, Black Mirror, returns, it will do so with a surprising new twist: a mobile video game tie-in called Thronglets. Think Tamagotchi, but psychologically threatening.

Netflix showed off both a sneak peek of the new season of Black Mirror and the accompanying life sim game from Night School Studios during a private event in March during the Game Developers Conference. Sean Krankel, cofounder of Night School Studios and Netflix’s newly appointed general manager of narrative, says the team worked closely with Brooker to create “an artifact” from the show people could experience as an extension of its story.

“The way I came back to the team and I was like, oh my God, imagine if you brought a Mogwai home and it effed up your life after you watched Gremlins,” Krankel says. “That’s the vibe that we really wanted to create there.”

Night School, which Netflix acquired in 2021, is well-versed in creating games based in TV universes. Previously it worked on a tie-in to USA Network’s Mr. Robot; the studio was also working on an unannounced game which would have connected to Netflix’s Stranger Things before the title’s publisher, Telltale Games, abruptly shut down.

Working with Brooker, Krankel says, had been a dream of his after seeing the 2018 Black Mirror film, Bandersnatch. “It was designed so well that even when you finished it, it was immediately dangling the carrot to come back and play it and get stuck in that loop,” Krankel says. “They showed a real gamelike design sophistication to it.”