Series / Squid Game: The Challenge

Make friends. Make enemies. Make millions.

— Netflix Promo

Squid Game: The Challenge (오징어 게임 더 챌린지; Revised Romanization: Ojinge Game De Chaelrinji) is a ten episode Game Show based on the 2021 Netflix original series Squid Game where 456 contestants play original and new games from the series for a $4.56 million prize which is the largest cash prize for a reality show. The first series was released on Netflix on November 22, 2023, and concluded on December 7, 2023.

The show is produced by Studio Lambert. On December 6, 2023, Netflix confirmed that a second season was in production.

Previews: Teaser Trailer Exclusive ClipFinal Trailer Season 2 Announcement

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Squid Game: The Challenge provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Similar to Squid Game, the players are taking part in a high-stakes game to win the prize pool of $4.56 million. It is the highest amount of prize money ever won on any game show. Unlike the original show, the players are simply eliminated rather than killed off making this a Downplayed Trope.
• Affably Evil: The guards. They politely inform the players about the rules and always assure to give them a fair chance. Though once again, this is a Downplayed Trope compared to the original series.
• The Announcer: Whenever a new game is introduced or a test is announced to eliminate players, the announcer explains the overall rules of the game.
• Arc Number: Once again, it's 456. Both for the number of players and the grand total amount of the prize money.
• Arc Symbol: Yet again, we have the circle, triangle, and rectangle. They adorn the masks of the guards and are two of the four shapes players can choose from in the Honeycomb Game.
• Artifact Title: The titular "Squid Game" is no longer the show's finale.
• Bizarrchitecture: The staircases. Just like in Squid Game, they are hard and confusing to walk around.
• Can't Move While Being Watched: The first game is Red Light, Green Light, with a giant doll with motion detectors in its eyes that are set to shoot any player who moves when it is facing them. This time around, however, the players are simply eliminated by an exploding ink packet which eliminates the player from the game.
• Cliffhanger: Some of the episodes have ended this way, encouraging viewers to watch the next episode.
• Deadly Game: A very heavily Downplayed Trope. Squid Game: The Challenge features six games and several different in-between tests that are designed to eliminate players. Some games are recreations of those from the original show, with some new games having been created to catch players off guard. There are also various tests between the games where players are forced to make tough choices to eliminate some players in between the rounds.
  • The games featured in Season One were:
  • Round One: Red Light, Green Light. A full-scale replica of the game from the original series.
  • Test One: Chopping Carrots. When two players are chopping carrots for dinner, the announcer informs them they can eliminate a player or grant a player an advantage in an upcoming challenge.
  • Round Two: Honeycomb. A full-scale replica of the game from the original series. After players choose the matching shape, they must follow the original game rules to win.
  • Test Two: The Ringing Phone. When the guards roll out a rotary phone into the barracks area, the players are worried about the phone. After one player answers the phone and is rewarded with food, the same player answers the phone again and discovers that he has to get someone else to answer the phone within thirty seconds or he will be eliminated.
  • Round Three: Warships. This game finds players arranging battleships on a grid and guessing the position of their opponent's ships to sink. The twist here is that the players are also the battleships. If one team sinks two opponent ships, they win the game and only the players on the sunken ships from both sides are eliminated. If they lose, their own Captain and Admiral are eliminated.
  • Test Three: The Vote. All of the remaining players gather to cast out three of their own via a simple popularity vote.
  • Test Four: Ddakji. The Korean game of Ddakji as seen from the original show. However, this is a Red Herring to pull a Bait-and-Switch on the two players randomly chosen to play it, with the winner simply being given a candy bar rather than the loser being eliminated.
  • Test Five: The Jack in the Boxes. Five players must volunteer to open Jack-in-the-Boxes that have the power to eliminate or gift advantages.
  • Test Six: Juicing Oranges. That's all the title implies, but completion rewards the entire dorm a luxurious picnic done in pairs, which is secretly a lead up to the next game.
  • Round Four: Marbles. A full-scale replica of the game from the original series, but players must compete against their picnic partner from earlier.
  • Test Seven: Nominations. A leader is chosen by the players. That leader automatically moves on to the next round, and has to nominate a player to join him. That player then chooses another player to join them and so forth until 20 players have been chosen.
  • Round Five: The Glass Bridge. A replica of the game from the original series except the order players go are decided by a claw machine that gives each player a placement number, who then has to decide who else to assign that placement number to.
  • Test Eight: Dice Roll. Players take turns where they declare if they want to eliminate someone or themselves, then roll a dice. If it lands on a six, the elimination happens. This continues until nine players are left.
  • Round Six: Circle of Trust. Players sit blindfolded in a circle and a random player is chosen to be "It" for a turn. "It" then has to nominate a target for elimination by means of placing a gift box next to a player. If the targetted player fails to guess who is the "It" that chose them, they will be eliminated, otherwise "It" will face elimination themselves. This continues on until three players remain.
  • Test Nine: Button Test. All three players are treated to a feast at a triangle-shaped dinner table. In the middle of the table, there is a podium in the middle displaying three buttons. Each player must press a button which will glow a different color. If the button glows green, that player moves on to the final game and gets to take another player with them. If it glows gray, no consequence will occur. If it glows red, the player is eliminated.
  • Round Seven: Rock Paper Scissors. In a squid-shaped grid, both players must stand on the eyes of the squid. At the top and bottom of the grid, there is a safe and a box of keys respectively. Both players must draw a move in a game of Rock Paper Scissors. The winning player must select a key from the box and try to open the safe. If they are unsuccessful, the game continues. Whoever picks a key and unlocks the safe successfully wins Squid Game.
• Deathly Dies Irae: The iconic theme of the masked guards is used several times in this series.
• Lighter and Softer: Since the contestants obviously aren't being murdered for failing, this is a given.
• Malevolent Masked Men:
  • As in Squid Game, The guards are dressed in pink jumpsuits and wear masks with different shapes according to their rank.
    • Workers (being the low-ranked of the three) wear masks with a circle.
    • Soldiers (the middle-ranked) wear masks with a triangle.
    • Managers (the high-ranked) wear masks with a square.
      • Of course, unlike the guards from the series, these guards are 100% harmless and are not armed with revolvers or machine guns, with the Manager speaking English fluently instead of the usual Korean language. At least the real contestants won't have to worry about getting shot in the head, but instead get a shotful of ink on their bodies in order to play along like in the series itself, just without the graphic death. Plus, in the final episode, all 456 players are alive and well.
• Nightmarish Nursery: The visual aesthetic of Squid Game is recreated here with the iconic sets making their comeback for Squid Game: The Challenge.
• Oh, Crap!: Genre-savvy players expecting the games to be the same were in for a massive surprise when they discovered that some of the games had been changed, catching them off guard.
  • Even the other familiar games caused many players this. From losing the game or witnessing a major change, there was a fair amount of this trope in action.
  • One of the biggest Mass "Oh, Crap!" moments of the series is during Episode 5, when many players find marbles in a special compartment of their picnic boxes, meaning that the whole 'picnic' was a setup to organize them in groups of two, most of them composed by friends or allies (one even composed by a mom-son duo) for the next challenge, the Marbles one.
• Uncanny Valley: The Red Light, Green Light doll recreated in the first episode is still creepy.
• You Are Number 6: Each player is assigned a number at the beginning of the game in accordance with when they signed up.