Netflix Adds Grand Theft Auto Series To Library
“Netflix and chill” is about to become “beat up hookers and steal cars.” As Variety reports, customers of the popular streaming service will soon have access to a trio of classic Grand Theft Auto games at no extra cost. Starting December 14, Netflix will begin offering Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy -The Definitive Edition to subscribers as part of their growing library of free mobile games.
Netflix members will soon be able to play mobile-optimized versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on their phone or tablet any time they feel like it. The titles can be accessed via Google Play, the App Store, or the Netflix mobile app. Beginning next Wednesday, Netflix customers can pre-register to play the three classic Grand Theft Auto games as soon as they’re available.
The news comes two years after Netflix first started offering games as part of its regular streaming service. According to Netflix executives, the company hopes to pivot more towards interactive entertainment until its video game offerings become a factor in customers choosing to subscribe to Netflix over other streamers. “Our job is to incrementally scale to the place where games have a material impact on the business,” said co-CEO Greg Peters during Netflix’s Q3 2023 earnings interview last month.
To that end, the streamer has been adding several original games based on Netflix properties to a growing library that also includes plenty of third-party titles like the upcoming Grand Theft Auto trilogy. Netflix’s original offerings include Chicken Run: Eggstraction, based on the upcoming Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, as well as games based on Stranger Things and Zach Snyder’s Star Wars-inspired Rebel Moon coming to Netflix later this year.
As great as many of those titles are, none of them have a fraction of the clout that comes with the name Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was originally released in November 2021 for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Switch. Despite the newest of the games in the collection—2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas—being almost 20 years old at this point, the titles are still a big enough draw to command a list price of $59.99 for the trilogy.
That’s largely because going around murdering innocent pedestrians and stealing their vehicles never gets old. Even when those pedestrians suffer from the blocky polygons inherent in PS2-era graphics, their senseless deaths provide a more satisfying stress relief than jumping on a Goomba ever could. Morbid? Not really, not any more so than watching a gory horror flick.
Meanwhile, the games couldn’t be coming to Netflix at a better time. Anticipation for the follow-up to Grand Theft Auto V—itself over a decade old at this point—just got a boost thanks to Rockstar’s announcement that a trailer for the long-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI is finally coming in December. Until then, Netflix customers can gorge themselves on the over 80 mobile games included with their subscriptions.
Soon, streamers will be able to add Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition to the list of titles available. Just don’t expect it to come with any hot coffee.
