Squid Game Season 2: The Curse of the Sequel Strikes Again

Squid Game Season 2 officially debuted on December 26, releasing all seven episodes at once. Even before airing, Squid Game 2 was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series at the start of this month.

This new season’s plotline picks up right where the first season left off. After winning a massive prize of 45.6 billion won (roughly 31 million USD), Seong Gi-hun re-enters the deadly survival game, determined to uncover the mastermind behind it all and take revenge. In truth, Squid Game isn’t a brand-new concept. Its premise is similar to works like Battle Royale, and some of its game elements have been accused of copying or borrowing ideas from Kaiji and Alice in Borderland. However, the show’s simplicity, striking visuals, and underlying social and economic themes helped it resonate with audiences around the world. Within four weeks of its premiere, Squid Game hit a record-breaking view count on the streaming platform.

The first season’s success secured plenty of funding and resources for Season 2. In addition to the returning creative team, several well-known young actors and pop stars have joined the cast. Director has said this was a deliberate move, explaining that Season 1 didn’t feature many young contestants because, at the time he was writing, it was less common for younger people to carry massive debts. But with South Korea’s sluggish job market and the crypto craze, many in the younger generation are now sinking into serious debt.

Yet despite high expectations, Squid Game 2 currently holds a 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while its audience score (“popcorn index”) sits at 64%. Despite a drop in critical acclaim, its popularity has reached an all-time high. On its second day of release, it claimed the number one spot in all 93 Netflix markets worldwide (leading in viewership), marking the first time a Netflix production has ever achieved this feat, with a perfect score of 930 points.

Having watched Squid Game 2 in one go, I personally feel it falls short of expectations. So, what do we want from survival game shows now?

When modern audiences watch a survival-style show or film, what exactly are they looking for? Some answers I would give are: how the game master designs and runs the gameandhow the players interact within these rules, challenging or bending them, which often in turn introduces a dystopian angle. These elements are what truly make a survival show compelling. Revealing human nature or illustrating Darwinism is a byproduct of these elements. But with Battle Royale having come out over 20 years ago—and modern audiences have been exposed to all kinds of survival game stories—they now crave fresher thrills.

From this perspective, making a second season of Squid Game could be seen as a risky decision. Compared to other survival stories adapted from manga, Squid Game wasn’t originally known for mind-bending plot twists. Instead, it stood out for its realistic setting, which helped stir emotional connections. It also featured simple, universal gameplay that broke down cultural barriers. The show’s repeated use of striking symbols, bold color contrasts, and classical music underscoring brutal killings created a unique, memorable aesthetic.

Ironically, these strengths from Season 1 now limit Season 2’s ability to innovate. The new season, for example, spends two entire episodes showing how Gi-hun ends up back in the game. It also tries to illustrate human greed by showing how people would rather buy lottery tickets than accept free food. One of the new rules states that players can vote to end the game after each round, giving them an immediate way out. Unlike Season 1—where players didn’t fully grasp the danger at first—Season 2’s contestants know exactly what they’re up against, yet many still choose to continue.

By the end of Season 2, the prize money per person is just about 100 million won (roughly 50,000 USD). It’s hard to imagine people risking their lives for that amount—especially when many have even bigger debts due to real estate, stock losses, and crypto investments, yet remain relatively calm.

The biggest innovation in Season 2 is adding a voting round after every game. Sure, it pads out the runtime, but it doesn’t make the story any more compelling. From the moment the masked figure announces this new rule, it’s obvious what the writers are going for: two opposing factions, stereotypical representatives, random flip-floppers, and — most critically — a guaranteed failure to actually quit. After all, if they really did stop the game, there’d be nothing left for anyone to watch. Because of that, the audience can’t be convinced by the story, nor can they be moved by each character’s screams, inner turmoil, or anxious hopes. The outcome is set in stone, so there’s no real suspense or question about it.

Given the episode count and the confirmation of a third season, it’s easy to see the game won’t truly end. But from a narrative perspective — looking at the characters’ circumstances and mental states — would that many people really vote to keep going? The “one more round” faction argues that the cash they currently have isn’t enough to fix their problems, so they might as well go all in. It sounds logical, almost to a laughable extent. Suddenly, these gamblers, speculators, and addicts turn into hyper-rational economic actors when faced with life-or-death stakes? Let’s be real: if they had any rational sense, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Survival is a basic instinct; when you’re staring down a gun barrel or stepping over corpses, you’d be too terrified to think about “dying out there anyway.”

The biggest letdown is how the main character is written this season. In Season 1, he was kind yet greedy, moral yet wavering, a little bit of everything, but never to an extreme. In Season 2, he suddenly turns into this beacon of justice, brave and fearless to the point where it’s confusing. Sure, the game is cruel and treats human lives like they’re worthless. If you’re super proud and principled, you’d definitely feel humiliated and belittled. But in theory, an everyman wouldn’t. Especially not someone who walked away with a fortune. Once you’ve survived and they haven’t messed with you or your loved ones again, what’s driving you to risk your life taking this organization head-on? Why would you literally put your head on the chopping block to reenter the game? Season 2 doesn’t convincingly answer that. Also, Squid Game is supposed to be an extreme environment that pushes everyone to their psychological limits. The Season 1 contestants felt more authentic under that pressure. In Season 2, everyone’s moral compass seems dialed way too high, and their behavior never really changes.

All in all, Season 2’s games look flashier and more chaotic, but lack the tight, breathless suspense of Season 1’s iconic tug-of-war or glass bridge. It no longer seems like a genuine fight for survival, and comes off more crazed and over-the-top than before. Taken by itself, Squid Game 2 might get a passing. But when you factor in the phenomenal success of Season 1 and the three-year wait, what we’ve ended up with is a sequel that feels drawn out and incomplete, with many loose ends. Squid Game was once a golden franchise, but under commercial pressure and limited creativity, the shine seems to be wearing off.