It could be the most inevitable announcement ever made, but now it is official: Squid Game will return for a second season. Netflix confirmed the news on Sunday, while offering a few hints about what is to come in the hit Korean dystopian drama.
Squid Game became Netflix’s most-watched series when it was released in September. The show tells the story of cash-strapped contestants who play childhood games for a chance of life-changing sums of money. It inspired countless memes and Halloween costumes, kickstarted sales of green tracksuits and laid bare the extent of South Korea’s personal debt crisis.
Red light… GREENLIGHT!
— Netflix (@netflix) June 12, 2022
Squid Game is officially coming back for Season 2! pic.twitter.com/4usO2Zld39
On Sunday, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk teased a few details about the show’s second season in a message released by Netflix.
The characters Seong Gi-hun and the Front Man will return, he said, and “the man in the suit with ddakji might be back”, referencing the mysterious character played by actor Gong Yoo.
“You’ll also be introduced to Young-hee’s boyfriend, Cheol-su,” he added. Young-hee is a motion-sensing animatronic doll that featured in one of the games – Red Light, Green Light –and quickly became a symbol for the show.
Netflix did not say when the new season would be released, but Hwang has previously estimated it could arrive in 2023 or 2024.
In an interview with the Guardian fresh after the show’s success last year, Hwang said he was “considering” a sequel.
“I have a very high-level picture in my mind, but I’m not going to work on it straight away,” he said. Last month, he told Vanity Fair that he wanted the next season “to ask the question, ‘Is true solidarity between humans possible?’”
And the second season may not be the end of Squid Game; in an earnings call in January, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said “the Squid Game universe has just begun”.
