The game will not stop. As credits rolled on the seven-episode Squid Game 2, a mid-credits scene that ended the show’s second season finale was accompanied by a title card that said, “Final season coming in 2025.” (Netflix previously announced that a third and final season of the record-breaking Korean survival thriller would air next year.) But in a new interview, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk says the K-drama — which follows 456 players as they gamble with their lives in a life-or-death game for the chance to win a cash prize of 45.6 billion won — will survive beyond Squid Game season 3.
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“I know Netflix has a plan [for more Squid Game]. They are not going to throw this idea away,” Hwang told TheWrap. Besides a second season of the reality competition series Squid Game: The Challenge, Netflix gave the green light to an English-language version of Squid Game from House of Cards and Mindhunter executive producer David Fincher.
[RELATED: Squid Game Season 2 Ending Explained (and What Comes Next)]
“Maybe I’ll be in one of those projects as an advisor or co-creator. Who knows?” Hwang added of the reality show and the American Squid Game remake. “But Season 3 is not going to be the end of the Squid Game universe.”
Since its streaming debut on Dec. 26, the Golden Globe-nominated Squid Game 2 became the first Netflix series to debut at #1 in all 93 countries where the service is available.
The first season became a worldwide hit when it premiered in 2021, overtaking Stranger Things as Netflix’s most popular series ever and dominating the Global Top 10 for nine consecutive weeks — a first for any non-English series. Squid Game 1 went on to make history when star Lee Jung-jae became the first Asian actor ever to win the Emmy award for Best Actor in a Drama at the 74th Emmys, and Hwang’s win for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series made him the first Asian and Korean person to achieve the feat.
Squid Game 3 is, technically, part 2 of season 2. Netflix split the season after Hwang — who intended for the first season of Squid Game to be a one-off — realized there were “too many episodes” for season 2.
“Honestly, when I was first working on the first season, I didn’t have any plans or thoughts about there ever being further seasons,” Hwang explained to Entertainment Weekly. “In Korea it’s not very common for series to have multiple seasons, and also because season 1 was so incredibly demanding, so I don’t think I had the confidence to once again work on further [seasons] where I would be the writer, director, and creator all throughout.”
The first season ended with Player 456/Gi-hun (Lee) vowing to use his prize money to track down the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and the mysterious benefactors behind the game. While Squid Game 2 ends on a cliffhanger, Squid Game 3 will complete Gi-hun’s story — even if the Squid Game Universe continues in future installments and spinoffs.
“The desire to put a closure to the story that I began to tell arose after we worked on season 1,” Hwang said. “In terms of why did I decide to end the story with season 3, I think that the story I wanted to tell came to a full closure at the end of season 3. The story that I both wanted to tell and that I am capable of telling through Gi-hun, it has been told with season 3.”
Squid Game 2 is now streaming on Netflix, with season 3 set to air sometime in 2025.