Squid Game Season 2: Release Date Confirmed and The Third and Final Season Is Coming Too
The anticipation for the release of Squid Game Season 2 on Netflix is growing and now we also know when the new episodes will be released. But it doesn’t end there because Netflix has also just announced the arrival of a third and final season of the series in 2025. It’s been almost three years since Squid Game debuted on Netflix and the worldwide success has overwhelmed this South Korean series that, in a very short time, has become part of the most-viewed Netflix series ever. A global phenomenon, Squid Game continues to be talked about and many are wondering when the second chapter of this cruel but fascinating series will arrive on Netflix. So far, there is not much information on Squid Game Season 2, except for some anticipation on the fact that it will have a new killer doll and that there will be some welcome returns in the cast, but now we have great news on Squid Game Season 2, first of all, the official release date.
It’s no surprise that Squid Game revolutionized the way the West watches Korean series. While the country’s series have managed to position itself as the most-watched series since the arrival of streaming platforms, the resounding success of the series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk has catapulted it to become the most-watched series in the entire history of Netflix. Precisely, that great wave generated by the dystopian series, with a theme rarely seen on the small screen, was what generated a hurricane on social networks in search of the continuation of the series. Although Hwang Dong-hyuk had several doubts about a second season of Squid Game, expressing in various press conferences and interviews his uncertainty about where to take the series’ theme, it was on a red carpet in Los Angeles that the director came to mention to AP Entertainment: “I almost feel like they’re leaving us no other choice”.
What to Expect from Squid Game Season 2‘s Storyline?
The second season of Squid Game will see protagonist Seong Gi-hun trying to destroy the Squid Game system after discovering that the deadly game is ready to continue with new contestants. (Spoiler!) The first season of Squid Game ended with the death of the creator of the hellish Squid Game and the discovery by Gi-hun, the protagonist of the series, that his companion, the player 001, was the mastermind behind the monstrous stain of death.
Furthermore, the final scene of the survival game saw Gi-hun living in complete poverty despite having won a nice sum with the Squid Game (but money doesn’t make you happy) and, after discovering that the game continued to “recruit” people, the man decides to call the number of the Squid Game business card and threaten the organization to put an end, once and for all, to the game. We can deduce that the protagonist of the series, in the second season, will develop a plan to destroy the game forever using his experience as a player and winner of the Squid Game and will most likely try to re-enter the game to destroy it from within. The creator of the K-Drama, Hwang Dong-hyuk, recently revealed that he has a basic plot in mind for the second season of Squid Game, will he be able to surprise us?
Squid Game Season 2: The Reconfirmed Cast and the New Characters?
The cast of Squid Game Season 2 has announced the return of several characters from the first season, from the main character Lee Jung-Jae (in the role of Seong Gi-hun) to Lee Byung-Hun in the role of the Front Man, up to Wi Ha-jun, the policeman Hwang Jun-ho who manages to enter the Squid Game and, finally, Gong Yoo will, the salesman who recruits the participants of the Squid Game. There are also several new entries in Squid Game Season 2 as new players of the terrible deadly game of the Squid Game: Yim Si-Wan, Kang-Ha Neul, Park Sung-Hoon, and Yang Dong-Geun. Three new characters in Chapter 2 of Squid Game are also: Park Gyu-young, Jo Yu-Ri, Kang Ae-sim, Lee David, Lee Jin-Uk, Choi Seung-Hyun, Roh Jae-won, and Won Ji-an.
How Successful Was Squid Game?
The first season of Squid Game centered on a group of 456 contestants, all struggling financially, who are invited to participate in a series of children’s games in exchange for a substantial cash prize. However, these seemingly innocent games have a deadly twist: losing a game results in the player’s death. The competition takes place in a remote, secret location, run by masked guards under the supervision of a mysterious overseer known as the Front Man. Squid Game was a cultural phenomenon, becoming Netflix’s most-watched series with record-breaking viewership. The first season earned 14 Emmy nominations and six wins, including Best Director for Hwang Dong-hyuk and Best Actor in a Drama Series for Lee Jung-jae. The series’ success not only highlighted the appeal of international content but also paved the way for more diverse storytelling in traditional media.
Squid Game Season 2 Release Date
Squid Game Season 2 will be released on Netflix on December 26, 2024. In addition, the episodes will be presented in absolute preview on October 31, 2024, during Lucca Comics in the presence of the creator, writer, and director of the series Hwang Dong-hyuk himself, and the main actors Lee Jung-jae and Wi Ha-jun who will meet the fans and reveal to the whole world some news of the highly anticipated second season.
We now know when the second season of ‘Squid Game’ will premiere: Netflix has revealed that it will arrive on December 26 (a dystopian Christmas binge) and that the series will conclude with the third season, which will premiere in 2025 – the wait will not be as long as between S1 and S2. The third season has been filmed consecutively to the second. The second season of the series, created by writer, director, and executive producer Hwang Dong-hyuk, follows Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae) after his “amazing decisions” made at the end of the first season. Instead of leaving the United States, he sets out on a manhunt with an important motive.
“It’s been almost three years since the first season received an incredible response around the world, and many unimaginable events took place,” Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote in a statement. “On the first day we started filming the second season, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m back in the world of Squid Game. ’It almost felt surreal. I wonder how you, too, will feel about returning to Squid Game after three years.”
He added, “Seong Gi-hun, who swore revenge at the end of the first season, returns and joins the game again. Will he succeed in getting his revenge? The figurehead doesn’t seem to be an easy opponent this time either. The fierce clash between their two worlds will continue in the series finale with the third season, coming next year. I’m excited to see the seed planted in creating a new Squid Game grow and bear fruit to the end of this story. We will do our best to make sure that we bring you another exciting ride.”
The Pressure for the Second Season!
Series creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has previously teased that there were talks about a Squid Game 2, and he himself has just confirmed that there will be new episodes in a statement to the Associated Press: “There’s been so much pressure, so much demand, and so much love for a second season. So I almost feel like I’m left with no other choice! But I will say that there will indeed be a second season. It’s in my head right now. I’m currently in the planning process. But I think it’s too early to say when and how it will happen. So I promise you this… Gi -hun will return, he will do something for the world”.
In other recent statements to Deadline, he notes that he has already begun the creative process: “That’s my task right now, to figure out how to take what I created in the first season and do something new and unexpected with it,” he declared. Hwang Dong-hyuk acknowledged that the continuation of the series is not an officially approved project by Netflix, but that he is delighted to expand this ‘squid universe’ in which the key is the games in which the participants are eliminated: “Although these games are ones I played as a child in Korean, they are all simple and easy. I thought these games were very easy to understand and enjoyable to watch. I tried to choose simple and easy games”.
Deadline noted that, although the series is a K-Drama, the stories can be understood anywhere in the world: the protagonist is unemployed, another character is an immigrant, another is a refugee, Gi-hun’s best friend is a great professional who has ruined his career… “Personally, I was very confident that this story would be understood globally and these stories would resonate with a global audience. I was confident that audiences would understand what these characters were going through. On a personal level, I always had the confidence that when we showed ‘Squid Game,’ this was not going to be a spectacle, something that is seen from afar, but something that is close to the heart and hits home”.
The First News About Squid Game Season 2
At the end of October, Hwang Dong-hyuk gave an interview with ‘The Guardian’ in which he said that they were already in talks about a second season of the series, but that he was not willing to abandon other ideas just because of the money that Netflix was offering him.
“Of course there is talk,” Hwang said. “It’s inevitable because it’s been such a big success. I’m considering it. I have a very high-level image in my mind, but I’m not going to work on it right away. I want to make a movie and I’m thinking about what to do first. I’m going to talk to Netflix.”
“Of course there is talk,” Hwang said. “It’s inevitable because it’s been such a big success. I’m considering it. I have a very high-level image in my mind, but I’m not going to work on it right away. I want to make a movie and I’m thinking about what to do first. I’m going to talk to Netflix.”
In the interview, Hwang explained that, despite the fortune raised, he had not received much of it: “I’m not that rich,” he admits. “But I have enough. I have enough to put food on the table. And it’s not like Netflix pays me a bonus. Netflix paid me according to the original contract. I may have to do the second season to become as rich as the winner of ‘The Squid Game’,” he told The Guardian with humor.
However, it won’t be an experience that he looks forward to just because, because he recalled the difficulties of conceiving and filming ‘The Squid Game’: “It was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. I kept coming up with new ideas and revising episodes while we were filming, so the amount of work multiplied.”
In a separate interview in September, Hwang had already noted that “I don’t have any well-developed plans for ‘Squid Game Season 2‘. It’s pretty exhausting just thinking about it. But if I were to do it, I certainly wouldn’t do it alone. I would consider using a writers’ room and I would want several experienced directors”.
The series creator told ‘The Guardian’ that the idea came from the financial difficulties his family experienced during the international crisis of 2009. “I was very short of money because my mother retired from the company she worked for. I was working in one but we couldn’t get funding. So I was stuck for a year. We had to take out loans: my mother, me and my grandmother,” he said in the interview.
“I read Battle Royale and Liar Game and other survival game comics. I identified with the people in them, who were desperate for money and success. If there was a survival game like this in real life, I wondered if I would join it to make money for my family. I realized that since I was a filmmaker, I could put my own spin on these kinds of stories, so I started writing the script.”
Some have wanted to see a deep critique of capitalism in ‘Squid Game’, but Hwang Dong-hyuk has denied this. “It’s not deep! It’s very simple. I think the global economic order is unequal and about 90% of people think it’s unfair. During the pandemic, poorer countries can’t vaccinate their people. They catch viruses on the street and even die. So I tried to convey a message about modern capitalism. As I said, it’s not deep.”
Before he gets down to finalizing plans for ‘Squid Game Season 2‘, Hwang Dong-hyuk wants his previous work as a filmmaker to be known, and to do so, he has asked Netflix to include some of his previous works in its catalog. That’s negotiating!
In ‘Squid Game’, people in urgent need of money are invited onto a mysterious ship where 456 people meet. They must participate in various games to win a single prize of 45.6 billion won [about 33 million euros]. All the games are traditional Korean children’s games like ‘Green light, red light’, but when you are eliminated, they do so literally: that is, you die.
