Netflix Wants To Make A Squid Game Universe

Season 2 of Squid Game has been officially confirmed by Netflix, and it sounds like the company is putting effort into the creation of a Squid Game universe.

Spoilers for Squid Game follow, so this is a warning to stop your knickers getting in a twist.

"Absolutely it's happening, the Squid Game universe has just begun," said co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos in the company's fourth quarter 2021 earnings interview (cheers, Variety). Sorry, isn't the concept of a Squid Game universe simultaneously antithetical and absolutely awful? A Squid Game universe implies the existence of the Squid Game across time and space both forwards and backwards (and whatever other directions time and space travel in) which would be challenging to execute while keeping the secrecy surrounding the event intact.

It's a dark show, but that hasn't stopped fans from recreating the games in Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Fortnite and even Roblox. Take a look:

Secondly, 455 people died in Squid Game and with every death, the prize pot of $38.5 million increased in increments of $84,000. All of the contestants are burdened with significant debt, from Seong Gi-hun who is a gambling addict to Kang Sae-byeok who has borrowed loans to bring her parents across the border of North Korea, to Abdul Ali who hasn't been paid by his employer for months on end, jeopardising the lives of his wife and child. It then transpires that the whole thing is the construction of a bored but terminally ill elderly man who disguised himself as a player in the Squid Game to relive his childhood memories. It's possible that I'm being pedantic but I think you'll find I just don't want more people to die in perverse reenactments of children's playground games.

Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk had previously confirmed that Gi-hun will appear once again in the second season of the show and I hope he keeps his red hair. It's silly, yes, and funny. It was apparent that the show would be continuing given the exceptional reception and success that it saw, snagging three Golden Globes and three Critics Choice Award nominations. Moreover, it left shows like Bridgerton, Money Heist, Stranger Things and The Witcher in the dust, scoring 1.65 billion hours watched by customers in its first month. Nevertheless, with Gi-Hun refusing to board the plane at the end of the story, it's anyone's guess where the second season will go.