Choose your path: Netflix releases interactive Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch
This is the first new Black Mirror content since last year
Netflix has just given its viewers a late Christmas present — a part of the technological imagination series Black Mirror in the form of an interactive movie called Bandersnatch.
Bandersnatch uses a Choose Your Own Adventure format, allowing viewers to choose how the haunting, Emmy-winning technology drama will proceed. This is Netflix’s first-ever adult-oriented interactive programme.
The interactive film went live early Friday and is billed by Netflix as a morally-compromising adventure where you alone are in charge of what happens. It notes there are choices to be made, challenges to overcome, dangers to encounter and, as always in life (and Black Mirror), consequences to be had. Choosing wisely could lead to victory while taking the wrong path could end in disaster.
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The movie is 90 minutes long with five main endings. Throughout the movie, choices pop up at the bottom of the screen and viewers can pick which path to play. According to one report, the film contains a total of five hours of potential play-able footage.
Set in 1984, Bandersnatch is the story of geeky teenager Stefan, played by Fionn Whitehead, who sets out to turn a multiple-choice science-fiction book by the same title into a pioneering computer game that also presents the player with a series of choices.
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Back in early 2017, Netflix approached Black Mirror creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones with an unusual idea. The streaming service had been experimenting with interactive kids content, giving young viewers the ability to choose their own path through a story with a series multiple-choice questions that could be easily answered with the help of a TV remote.
This is the first new Black Mirror content since season 4 was released a year ago. A fifth season has been in production since 2018 but it’s unclear when it will be released.
