Night School Studio
- Open roles
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- Founded
- 2014
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- Offices
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About Night School Studio
Night School Studio was an American video game developer and publisher known for narrative adventures, supernatural stories and dialogue shaped by player choices. Founded in California in 2014 by Sean Krankel and Adam Hines, the studio developed games that integrated conversation into real-time play rather than relying on traditional cutscenes. Its work spanned consoles, computers, mobile devices and, later, cloud gaming.
Its debut, OXENFREE, arrived in January 2016 and established the studio's approach to combining exploration, character relationships and branching conversations. The supernatural adventure became the foundation for a broader portfolio of interactive stories with distinct settings and tones. These included the mobile narrative game Mr. Robot: 1.51exfiltrati0n, developed with Telltale Games; the afterlife comedy adventure Afterparty; and the science-fiction journey Next Stop Nowhere, released through Apple Arcade.
Netflix acquired the company in September 2021, making it the streaming company's first internal video game studio acquisition. Night School continued operating within Netflix's games division and retained its core creative leadership following the acquisition. It released OXENFREE II: Lost Signals on July 12, 2023, bringing the series to PC, consoles and Netflix's mobile offering. The sequel continued the studio's focus on supernatural storytelling and player-directed dialogue.
The studio subsequently developed Black Mirror: Thronglets, a 2025 companion game connected to the television series' seventh season. In June 2026, it released Unhinged, a roughly 40-minute first-person horror experience created for Netflix's cloud gaming service. The game used smartphones as motion controllers, extending the studio's work into another form of interactive storytelling.
Netflix announced Night School Studio's closure on August 13, 2026, during a restructuring of its games division. The shutdown ended the studio's operations after a catalogue that ranged from intimate mobile stories to multi-platform adventures and experimental cloud-based horror.
More about Night School Studio
Founders' backgrounds
Sean Krankel and Adam Hines are cousins. Before founding the studio, Krankel worked at Disney Interactive Studios and Hines worked at Telltale Games. The report identifies their creative leadership roles as Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director, respectively; these are historical roles rather than current appointments following closure.
Dialogue design
The studio's conversation mechanics included dialogue bubbles tied to avatar proximity, adding a spatial dimension to how players encountered and participated in conversations.
Recognition
The report credits OXENFREE with the Independent Games Festival's Excellence in Visual Art award. The recognition is attributed to the game.
Notable credits
8 creditsOffices
Current and former locations of Night School Studio
- Glendale, California, United States
Glendale office
Former officeOpened 2014 · Closed 2021
About this office
Original founding headquarters and development facility, identified in the report as operating from 2014 to 2021 before operations moved to Los Angeles. The report gives inconsistent street-address variants.
- 1341 Vine St., Los Angeles, CA 90028, USALos Angeles, California, United States
Los Angeles office
Former officeOpened 2021 · Closed 2026
Post-acquisition operational and legal premises from 2021 until the studio's closure in August 2026.
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