Pictures: Netflix
Earlier this year marked a milestone for Netflix: the end of interactive specials on the platform. After a wave of removals in late 2025, the last two holdouts — Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend — departed together in mid-May 2025. What’s on Netflix has learned they’ll now be making a return later this year.
For Black Mirror, the removal felt especially poorly timed given that season 7 featured a loose follow-up to Bandersnatch. Meanwhile, for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, its interactive special was the official finale and conclusion to Kimmy’s story.
After being unavailable for a couple of months, we’ve learned that both specials are slated to return to Netflix later this year within Netflix’s Game tab, which is part of Netflix’s new UI rollout that’s been taking place over the past few months.
Why were they removed in the first place?
The issue comes down to the underlying technology. Interactive specials relied on specific functionality that worked natively on Netflix across multiple devices. With Netflix rolling out its new user interface and discontinuing support for interactive specials, that playback technology was removed. From Netflix’s perspective, it didn’t make sense to maintain code for a feature no longer being actively developed.
Our understanding is that these two specials will now return under the Netflix Games tab later this year as emulated versions. All of the interactive functionality will remain intact, and in some ways, you might even have more control options, but they’ll no longer run natively on the main Netflix player.
At this time, only Bandersnatch and Kimmy vs. the Reverend are planned to return. Unfortunately, that means other fan favorites like We Lost Our Human, Trivia Quest, Cat Burglar, and the various DreamWorks interactive specials currently aren’t scheduled for a comeback.
Since their removals, the only way to replay these specials has been through archived versions or community efforts, such as The Netflix Interactive Archive, which has been recreating the functionality. Of course, those methods come with legal risks for anyone looking to experience them.
How have past interactive re-releases fared?
These aren’t technically the first interactive titles to return. Earlier this year, all of the Bear Grylls specials were re-released, but with a disappointing caveat — their interactive elements were stripped and repackaged into linear edits. They’re still watchable, but it’s easy to spot the awkward cuts.
Netflix Games on TV is expected to be a big push in the coming months. The catalog for connected TVs and the web is set to grow significantly, even as the mobile lineup has been slimmed down with dozens of removals and multiple scrapped launches.
Netflix declined to comment for this article.
Are you glad these two interactive specials are returning? Let us know in the comments which other interactive specials you’d like to see make a comeback.