How Netflix Creates Its Own Adventure Stories

Netflix is ​​no longer just about movies and TV, it’s also about interactivity. The streaming platform currently has 15 interactive titles, each with different levels of viewer agency. (And fun!) But behind each of these interactive specials, there’s a team that makes sure they reach a certain level of, well, interactivity.

The newest of these titles, the WWE link Escape the Undertaker, is one of the most interactive on the platform yet, following three wrestlers on their journey to the famous WWE villain’s mansion to steal their magic urn. Escape the Undertaker comes from director Ben Simms, who is also responsible for Netflix’s three interactive Bear Grylls survival specials. We sat down with Simms to dive into the process of creating these specials and discover how he designs them for maximum interactivity.

Image: Netflix

Step one: find the “ultimate success”

The first thing to find out, beyond the actual concept and key characters, is “ultimate success.” Whether it’s getting Bear Grylls off the mountain where he’s stranded or destroying Undertaker’s urn once and for all depends on the title, but the victory condition must be set before plotting all other endings.

“The important thing, especially with Netflix, is to make sure there is a variation in the endings and different levels of success,” explains Simms. “So once you have what could be the ultimate success, everything else builds on that, and the different iterations come from whatever that ultimate success is.”

Step two: trace the other endings and balance them

After deciding on that final success, the team has to discover the less successful endings. However, it is not as easy as simply finding alternatives. Play testing begins very early in the design process, not only to discover the technicalities of the title, but to make sure the entire experience is enjoyable.

“You want to make sure things are balanced enough that there isn’t necessarily a bumpy road you can take, that will be more exciting and it will look and sound much better than the rest,” says Simms. The team pays close attention to balancing the different paths. In the case of Escape the UndertakerFor example, the pathways take viewers through alternate routes through the house, exploring new locations. That way, Escape the Undertaker escapes (ha ha) some of the traps of other Netflix interactives, where the options are not really options, but brief seconds.

Step three: find out when an ending is an ending

One of the recurring elements of an interactive Netflix is ​​how some options allow viewers to come back after a bad choice and take a new one. Simms says that when creators are figuring out when to get viewers back to a checkpoint, the team needs to consider audience investment; If you’re immersed in a story, you don’t want to have to start from scratch, but if you’ve just started, it’s not a great success.

“It usually ends somewhere in the middle, and somewhere around the beginning of Act Three, where you invest enough in the stakes,” explains Simms. “The stakes rise a bit so that your choices, hopefully along the way, seem to matter more and more.”

Step four: integrate the options

The biggest difference between titles like You vs. Wild and Escape the Undertaker it is how the choices themselves are integrated into the narrative. Regardless of the plot, the goal is to make the choices consistent, but that’s easier in some stories than others.

“You don’t want it to feel too intrusive. If it’s a title where the character, the talent, or the person within the story, is breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience, that’s a little different and it can be made a little easier, ”says Simms.

Image: Netflix

Ultimately, the trick is to simplify the scenes as much as possible to highlight the choice, while still making them feel like scenes and not indications. Simms adds: “It should be as good a scene as possible without being interactive, it just happens to be interactive.”

Step five: Film the special

There are “extra layers” to filming an interactive special rather than shooting a regular movie, Simms says, and the biggest challenge is filming the same scenes over and over with slightly different contexts. Fortunately, on both projects Simms worked on, the artists were used to adapting and thinking quickly.

“[Bear Grylls] he is very good at the moment and is used to being alert in extreme situations. For him, it was very natural to adapt or completely change and change the tone of the scene, ”says Simms. “The same goes for all the talent in WWE. They are live artists, so it was very advantageous to work with them and to be able to say ‘Ok, now you are happy’. Now you’re sad. ‘ Obviously, it’s not that simplistic, but they can, in a moment, turn around and understand that we are doing a different version of the same scene. “

Endgame: the future of Netflix Interactives

If Netflix Interactives continues to get more complex, and so far that seems to be the trend, Simms says improved production quality could lend itself to even greater interactivity. The best possibility?

“I was able to see a scenario of almost a personality test based on your viewing choices, whether it’s based on your Netflix history or your online history,” says Simms. “I could see it becoming more and more personalized in that capacity.”

Escape the Undertaker and the You vs. Wild The titles, as well as the other Netflix interactives, are available to stream on Netflix.