Photos: Netflix
Earlier this 12 months marked a milestone for Netflix: the tip of interactive specials on the platform. After a wave of removals in late 2025, the final two holdouts — Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend — departed together in mid-Could 2025. What’s on Netflix has discovered they’ll now be making a return later this 12 months.
For Black Mirror, the elimination felt particularly poorly timed on condition that season 7 featured a free follow-up to Bandersnatch. In the meantime, for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, its interactive particular was the official finale and conclusion to Kimmy’s story.
After being unavailable for a few months, we’ve discovered that each specials are slated to return to Netflix later this 12 months inside Netflix’s Sport tab, which is a part of Netflix’s new UI rollout that’s been happening over the previous few months.
Why have been they eliminated within the first place?
The problem comes all the way down to the underlying know-how. Interactive specials relied on particular performance that labored natively on Netflix throughout a number of gadgets. With Netflix rolling out its new consumer interface and discontinuing assist for interactive specials, that playback know-how was eliminated. From Netflix’s perspective, it didn’t make sense to keep up code for a characteristic now not being actively developed.
Our understanding is that these two specials will now return below the Netflix Video games tab later this 12 months as emulated variations. The entire interactive performance will stay intact, and in some methods, you would possibly even have extra management choices, however they’ll now not run natively on the primary Netflix participant.
Presently, solely Bandersnatch and Kimmy vs. the Reverend are deliberate to return. Sadly, which means different fan favorites like We Misplaced Our Human, Trivia Quest, Cat Burglar, and the varied DreamWorks interactive specials at present aren’t scheduled for a comeback.
Since their removals, the one approach to replay these specials has been by means of archived variations or neighborhood efforts, similar to The Netflix Interactive Archive, which has been recreating the performance. In fact, these strategies include authorized dangers for anybody trying to expertise them.
How have previous interactive re-releases fared?
These aren’t technically the primary interactive titles to return. Earlier this 12 months, the entire Bear Grylls specials were re-released, however with a disappointing caveat — their interactive components have been stripped and repackaged into linear edits. They’re nonetheless watchable, nevertheless it’s simple to identify the awkward cuts.
Netflix Video games on TV is predicted to be a giant push within the coming months. The catalog for linked TVs and the online is about to develop considerably, even because the cell lineup has been slimmed down with dozens of removals and multiple scrapped launches.
Netflix declined to remark for this text.
Are you glad these two interactive specials are returning? Tell us within the feedback which different interactive specials you’d wish to see make a comeback.