Next time you’re at a train station, keep your eyes peeled — Squid Game is now officially real. Netflix has announced that the reality show based on the massively successful series will air this November.
Titled Squid Game: The Challenge the stakes won’t quite be life and death like the original Korean series (that became the most-watched show on Netflix), but they will still be pretty high. 456 contestants will battle it out for the largest prize in reality TV history $4.56 million. You won’t need to share a password with anyone after winning such a sum, but you also might not have any friends to watch with as Netflix promises “opportunistic alliances, cutthroat strategies and timely betrayals to follow.” that all sounds great, worthy of one the best streaming services for sure.
Netflix is of course known for its scripted series and the best Netflix movies but has dabbled in reality shows before. Recent years have seen a revival of US classic The Mole and the incredibly tough looking Physical 100 joining a spate of dating shows such as Love is Blind.
Like the original show, Squid Game: The Challenge will feature contestants facing off in a series of re-imagined children’s games across ten episodes with both physical and social challenges. It was in fact filmed in the UK so here’s hoping for a deadly version of the playground classic Sticky Toffee. That might actually not be too far from the truth as the reality series has already made headlines over contestants sustaining injuries and being subjected to brutal conditions. Netflix has refuted these claims, however.
If that’s not enough Squid Game for you, Netflix has already confirmed that the scripted show will receive a second series, if you ever doubted it. Series one protagonist Gi-hun is set to return but the continuation of the show will probably take a few more years to appear. Until then every Halloween is bound to be full of people in pink guard uniforms and green tracksuits so fill your boots.
