Netflix Adds A New Game Today, Relic Hunters: Rebels, In Which You Fight Space Ducks

Netflix has announced that Relic Hunters: Rebels will be its next gaming release, joining the library today, May 3. Relic Hunters: Rebels was developed by Brazilian studio Rogue Snail. You play as four Hunter characters--Jimmy, Ace, Pinkyy, and Raff--as you collect new weapons, each sporting unique abilities. Players fight against space ducks and turtles to try to defeat the vil Ducan Empire.

Rogue Snail CEO Mark Venturelli said, "Besides being huge fans of Netflix, we were thrilled to be one of the early pioneer developers for Netflix Games and to be part of this story from the beginning."

The executive said the studio was eager to work with Netflix in part because it didn't have to think about any kind of monetization, since Netflix's games offerings don't have microtransactions. "It allows us to focus on just making a fun game without having to worry about how to pay our bills. This keeps the game fun and fair for everyone," Venturelli said.

The executive went on to say that Rogue Snail attempted to make Relic Hunters: Rebels "run easily on older phones" in an attempt to help the game reach a wider audience.

One of the characters in Rebels, Baru, is non-binary. Venturelli said the studio hopes to help players feel "embraced for who they are," and including Baru was part of that effort.

"The inclusion of Baru was absolutely natural considering that the character was written by a non-binary person, drawn by a trans woman, and voiced by a non-binary talent in Jan Aponte," Venturelli said. "We want our players to feel embraced for who they are. We also believe that the gaming community is growing up and learning that making more people feel welcomed and accepted does not make the space any less so for dudes like me, aka a nerdy white guy. As long as we all respect each other, we can have a lot more fun together.

Rebels is available to download from the Netflix mobile app right now across iOS and Android for no extra charge, just like all of Netflix's games.

In other news, Netflix is reportedly looking to offer nearly 50 games on its service by the end of 2022. In addition to partnering with studios, Netflix owns some as well, including Boss Fight, Next Games, and Next School Studio.

Recently, Netflix confirmed it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the past three months and expects to lose 2 million more over the next few months. What's more, Netflix is now considering offering an ad-based subscription tier to the Netflix lineup to help grow subscribers and revenue.