Netflix
While watching the murderous, violent, scary Squid Game, did anyone think, “Man, do I wish this were real!” I, for one, did not. In fact, I was grateful to be safe inside my home, watching 455 people die for the chance to win some cash on a fictional show instead of watching this chaos unfold in real time. I’d like to think most people who watched Squid Game weren’t imagining what would happen if the games ever became reality. Alas, at least one person was, because the competition has become an actual reality show on Netflix called Squid Game: The Challenge—and 456 real people are participating.
Although Netflix’s reality-TV recreation of the drama goes against the entire point of the original Squid Game—that it’s sick to not only pit people against each other to earn a living but to gamify the situation—something about Squid Game: The Challenge is so dark, but simultaneously engrossing. Kicking off Nov. 22 with new episodes streaming weekly thereafter, it is as well-produced and enthralling as the 2021 Netflix hit, and better yet (no shocker here), none of these real contestants die. Instead, when someone is eliminated, they’re smacked with black paint and forced to keel over, playing dead. The rest of the competition is almost exactly the same as the K-drama: 456 players, a gargantuan prize of $4.56 million ($10,000 per player), and games that were originally meant for children.
Squid Game: The Challenge opens on Red Light, Green Light, naturally, in a sequence that feels almost like a carbon copy of the original show—except for the fact that, because no one is dying, the contestants don’t experience the wild shock of, “Oh my goodness, everyone around me is being killed.” Still, from the start, the new reality show is able to amp up the thrills, even without kills. It does the same with other returning games from the original show, like the Dalgona and marbles challenges, adding new flair to make up for lower stakes.