Squid Game: The Challenge has a whole new set of stakes — and some familiar ones, too.
In life, there’s probably not much you could say 456 strangers have in common. In the Squid Game universe, however, they’re all bonded by the pursuit of one high-stakes goal: Eliminate everyone else, and take home millions of dollars — no matter what it costs you.
In the 2021 Korean Squid Game scripted series, the stakes are about as high as it gets. The main character in director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game is Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced dad with a gambling problem and a crippling amount of debt. One day, a mysterious (and frankly, extremely handsome) man offers him the opportunity of a lifetime: Play a few games, and win the chance to take home millions of dollars. Figuring he doesn’t have much left to lose, Gi-hun finds himself waiting at an inconspicuous pickup point on the side of the road. After being picked up by masked guards in a van, he’s drugged into a coma, waking to find himself in a dormitory with 455 other people who just had a similar experience. The befuddled masses soon learn they all have a chance to compete in a series of challenges and win the money, but the cost for losing is, well, death.
Gi-hun and the other contestants are made to play a series of childhood games, each with their own bloody ending. From Red Light, Green Light and Marbles to Dalgona, a game named after a traditional Korean candy made of melted sugar and baking soda, the stakes of each challenge get higher and higher as the pot of winnings grows — and when players are eliminated, they’re executed by a team of guards and their body is removed from the area.
It’s a brutal premise, but it’s one that forced everyone who watched to consider what they might do if faced with the same dilemma. Friendships are betrayed, enemies emerge, and the characters reveal themselves to be complicated individuals with a series of impossible choices to make.
In other words, it kind of sounds like a great reality show.
And with the premiere of Squid Game: The Challenge on Nov. 20, one no longer has to consider the odds of a childhood game of strategy or luck alongside their very mortality: In the reality competition version of the wildly popular Korean show, the prize is just as big (well, not $456 million, but $4.56 million will do just fine), and the scheming is just as calculated. The only thing that dies, though, are people’s dreams.
Check out the video above for everything you need to know about Squid Game before Squid Game: The Challenge launches on Nov. 22. And remember: How you play is who you are.
