Netflix just unveiled Unhinged, and it might be the strangest thing the streamer has ever put in its games tab. Arriving June 30, this interactive horror story does not need a console or controller. Instead, your own smartphone becomes the entire interface, and you receive phone calls that ring straight through your actual device mid-game.
How to play Netflix’s Unhinged using your phone as a controller?
You play as Ava, voiced by Zoë Kravitz, trapped in her apartment during a Category 5 hurricane when the power cuts out. Her best friend Claire, voiced by Sadie Sink, calls from across the street, and when that call comes through in the story, your real phone rings and plays the audio through its own speaker, while ambient sound effects continue booming through your TV.
You have to scan a QR code to link your phone, then use its real-world tilt and movement to guide Ava’s flashlight through the dark. Night School Studio’s Sean Krankel says the team discovered this flashlight trick about two years ago and built the entire horror concept around it once they realized a home invasion story would feel especially unsettling played inside your own living room.
Troy Baker also joins the cast as the building’s superintendent. You can choose Story Mode for a no-stakes narrative run, or Standard Mode, where a shrinking timer forces quick thinking before you die and restart from your last checkpoint.
Netflix’s growing bet on interactive storytelling
This isn’t Netflix’s first swing at interactive entertainment. The streamer has dabbled in choice-driven stories before, going back to Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, and has continued building out original games tied to franchises like Stranger Things, alongside licensed titles such as FIFA and Red Dead Redemption.
However, Unhinged marks something different with its standalone original built specifically around its own phone-based mechanic. The whole experience runs just 20 to 50 minutes, deliberately sized to fit a single sitting. So if you have a phone and a Netflix login, that’s all you’ll need to make it through the night on Unhinged.
