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Night School Studios Director talks Oxenfree 2 & Netflix acquisition

Night School Studio Director Sean Krankel talks about the big Netflix acquisition and what it has meant for Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals.

Ozzie Mejia

July 12, 2023 4:00 PM

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This has been a big day for the team at Night School Studio. The long-awaited follow up to the original Oxenfree released today on multiple platforms. That includes a mobile version that's available to all current Netflix subscribers. Shacknews recently had the opportunity to chat with Night School about the team's Netflix partnership, the long-awaited release of Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals, and moving forward as a prominent indie game developer.

"It's been interesting because it's almost like they just stuck a battery in our back for the things that we already wanted to do," Night School Studio Director Sean Krankel told Shacknews. "So I don't think things have changed, in terms of our creative approach, but now areas where previously we were only working with a contractor or a vendor, now we hired great graphics engineers and UX artists and hired a lot of the types of roles that we couldn't previously hire for. Another thing is, we can now put this game out globally in a way that we couldn't before, so we're translating Oxenfree 1 into 30 languages, we're launching [Oxenfree 2] in over 30 languages, so that's just stuff as an indie studio that you can't do."

Krankel notes that the Netflix acquisition has given Night School access to new resources, but the team remains left to its own devices and autonomous to the point that the team can do the projects that it wants. Krankel also talks about how talks had initially started about licensing and eventually developed into a full-blown acquisition.

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is available starting today on PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. It's also available on mobile devices at no extra charge to Netflix subscribers. Be sure to check out our review.. And for more interviews like this, check out Shacknews and Shacknews Interviews on YouTube.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?