Netflix’s 2025 schedule is making good on a lot of old promises. Fans may have not seen Jenna Ortega in Wednesday since 2022, but Season 2 is finally coming this year. The long gaps between Stranger Things seasons have become a tired joke at this point, but in 2025 we’ll finally see the show come to a close after almost a decade.
However, the other high-profile release date for 2025 breaks this trend. Season 2 of Squid Game came in late 2024, more than three years after Season 1. But Season 3, the final season of the series, will come less than a year later. In fact, if a publicity slip-up is to be believed, it may just be a handful of months.
Season 2 of Squid Game ended with a strange mid-credits scene showing the players approaching the Red Light Green Light robot Young-hee, but this time, she’s not alone. Opposite to her is another giant child robot, identified by showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk as “Chul-su.”
This clip was soon posted by Netflix’s various regional YouTube channels, hyping up the third season premiering in 2025. But when the Korean Netflix YouTube channel posted the teaser, the caption revealed a little more than intended, reading “Watch Squid Game on Netflix on June 27.”
The video was quickly deleted, but all evidence points to this being a likely possibility for Season 3’s release. In a conversation with Variety, Hwang Dong-hyuk was asked about when in 2025 fans could expect Season 3 to premiere. “After Season 2 launches, I believe we will be announcing the launch date for Season 3 soon,” he said. “I probably expect that to launch around summer or fall next year.” June 27 is definitely firmly in the “summer 2025” category.
So how is such a small gap between seasons possible? Most of it comes down to the format of the season. Hwang said in the same interview with Variety that Seasons 2 and 3 were originally supposed to be one long season but were divided into two. This allowed both seasons to be filmed back to back, meaning there’s no need to reconvene the cast and crew again.
Season 2 of Squid Game did feel like half the story, so the shorter the wait for Season 3 the better. It’s unlikely that it will change the norm of taking years to create a new season, but it will be a welcome blessing in a year full of prodigal shows returning.
