Squid Game: The Challenge called 'gripping' with 'palpable suspense' in rave reviews

When the debut of the South Korean series Squid Game aired on Netflix in 2021, it’s fair to say that it had taken the internet by storm. At that time, it was near impossible to go a week without hearing a friend, family member, colleague or a random person mentioning the highly popular series.

“A story of people who fail at life for various reasons, but suddenly receive a mysterious invitation to participate in a survival game to win more than 38 million US dollars,” reads the synopsis for season one of the Netflix show. “The game takes place on an isolated island and the participants are locked up until there is a final winner.”

Check out the trailer for Squid Game: The Challenge below!

The hype surrounding 2021’s Squid Game was further backed up by its impressive Rotten Tomatoes scores of 95% from critics and 84% from the audience. What’s more, it scored 8.0/10 on IMDB, which by IMDB standards, is quite the rating, to say the least.

Its second season is in the works but in the meantime, reality show Squid Game: The Challenge will arrive on Netflix this week on 22 November. Does a reality show with a cash prize defeat the purpose of the original drama's message? Yes, but hey. The people wanted more and Netflix gave them more. Can this version of Squid Game compare to the drama itself? Well, if the early impressions are anything to go by, then fans will be pleased to know that the answer to that question is yes, it can.

The synopsis reads: “Four hundred and fifty-six players compete to win $4.56 million, the largest single cash prize in reality television and game show history breaking a previous record of $2,600,000 won by Andrew Kravis by winning The Million Second Quiz.”

“Squid Game had no shortage of twists, yet this might be the biggest one of all: With its eclectic cast and inventive updates to the original, Squid Game: The Challenge manages to serve up palpable suspense and authentic human drama without murdering a single contestant,” reads the review from Entertainment Weekly.

“The game show uses the language of modern reality television to realise, in its own strange way, the themes in Dong-hyuk’s parable of capitalism grinding human beings into dust. That reality television itself is an artefact of late-stage capitalism only underscores the point,” says the Vulture.

As for Rotten Tomatoes, the score for Squid Game: The Challenge is somewhat underwhelming with a critic score of just 67%. However, that score will no doubt change in the coming days especially with the arrival of the audience reviews.

Squid Game: The Challenge airs tomorrow on Netflix with all 10 episodes available from the get-go.