Netflix in Talks to Bring a New Grand Theft Auto Title to Its Games Service: Report

Grand Theft Auto 6, Rockstar Games’ long-awaited sequel to 2013’s Grand Theft Auto 5, has left gamers parched, with no official announcement about its release from the developers. If you’ve been waiting for the next GTA title, however, there might be good news for you. It’s not GTA 6, but a new report claims that streaming giant Netflix is looking to add a Grand Theft Auto title to its games portfolio. There are no details on the game itself or its launch date, but a GTA release on the Netflix Games platform would likely be a mobile title.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is planning to license the lucrative GTA franchise for a future release on its Netflix Games service. The report mentions that the streamer has held discussions with Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive over plans to release a GTA title for its catalogue via a licensing deal. No details about the deal or the type of game planned for release are available just yet.

An active Netflix subscription grants you access to its Netflix Games service, a growing catalogue of games available to play on mobile and tablets. The streamer has recently also started testing its games on more devices. A new GTA title on Netflix Games would thus likely be a mobile title. It’s worth noting that mobile versions of mainline GTA titles already exist on both Android and iOS. Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are available to download as part of the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy bundle on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. GTA: Chinatown Wars, a handheld title originally released on the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable, is also available on both mobile platforms.

The WSJ report claims that Netflix is doubling down on its effort to bring more games to its subscribers and is focussed on adding higher quality titles to its roster, which can be played on TVs and PCs via game streaming. The streamer will reportedly also add games based on its hit shows, with Squid Game and Wednesday mobile games arriving in the coming months. Back in July, the company added The Queen’s Gambit Chess, based on its popular The Queen’s Gambit series starring Anya Taylor-Joy, to Netflix Games service on both Android and iOS.

Meanwhile, in August, Netflix announced that select subscribers in the US and Canada would be able to cloud stream a section of games from its portfolio on their TVs. Tests for game streaming on PC and Mac have also begun, with two games — Night School Studios’ Oxenfree and Molehew’s Mining Adventure — included in the testing period. Netflix subscribers will be able to use their phone as a controller, with a dedicated Netflix Game Controller app available to download on the App Store.

Netflix added two games to its library in October, bringing Paladin Studios’ Nailed It! Baking Bash and Thunder Lotus Games’ Spiritfarer to the service. Nailed It! is an arcade cooking game in the vein of Overcooked, while Spiritfarer is an adventure platformer with shipbuilding at its core.

While there’s no release timeline for the GTA title coming to Netflix, a GTA 6 announcement is perhaps even further away. Rockstar is hard on work on the next mainline GTA title, which we know will be set in Miami’s Vice City and will feature two playable protagonists, Lucia and Jason.