‘Squid Game’ Season 3: What We Know (So Far) From Photos and Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk

The highly anticipated third season has a release date. The Korean-language drama will return June 27, dropping all episodes on Netflix. (An episode count has yet to be announced; though six has been reported.) 

Squid Game is Netflix’s most popular series ever. Smashing its own viewership records from season one, season two set a worldwide record for its premiere week with the highest single-week viewing tally with 4.92 billion minutes of viewing.

After winning the games and emerging as the sole survivor, Gi-hun made a fateful choice in the season one finale. Instead of walking away to start a new life with his 45.6 billion won ($31.5 million) cash prize, Player 456 vowed revenge on Front Man, the enigmatic organizer of the twisted life-and-death obstacles inspired by classic Korean children’s games, but with the odds of surviving them stacked mightily against its players.

Gi-hun then spends the beginning of season two figuring out how to get back in the games so he can dismantle the billionaire-backed system from within. Once he does get back in, despite all of his hard-fought efforts, however, his attempt at a coup is ultimately thwarted when his new ally, Player 001 Young-il, reveals to the audience — but not yet to Gi-hun — that he is Front Man. The final scene is of Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) executing Gi-hun’s best friend, Player 290 Park Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), and warning Gi-hun about the consequences of his rebellion.

Season two had added a new element where, after each round, the players voted if they wanted to continue. After landing on a tie, the players had one night to sleep on their decisions before they would vote again the following day. That period is when the rebellion began — leaving many players killed in a battle between the “Xs” (the players who want to stop the game) and the “Os” (the players who want to continue), including standout Player 230 Thanos (Choi Su-bong).

Season two ended on the major cliffhanger of the games now incomplete, and Gi-hun and his subordinates once again held captive.

A mid-credits scene following the season two finale had teased a new Red Light-Green Light game doll, signifying that indeed the games will go on. Netflix released an expanded teaser (below) of that moment on social media, revealing the doll’s name as Chul-su.

When Netflix later announced the release date, the streamer dropped new key art and a batch of photos for season three. Those photos, which are used throughout this list, show Gi-hun handcuffed to his bed, the Front Man both masked and unmasked, and his fellow “X” players uncovering a casket. But its Chul-su who looms largest.

In the season’s new key art, a pink guard is seeing dragging a bloodied contestant toward one of the games’ signature coffins wrapped in a pink ribbon. Instead of the rainbow-hued track of from season two’s six-legged pentathlon, the floor pattern is now one of blood-soaked swirling flowers, which Netflix says “ominously foreshadows the cutthroat finale.”

The sinister silhouettes of Young-hee, the original doll, and her new companion Chul-su are seen in shadows, suggesting the updated Red Light-Green Light game for season three could be the most brutal yet.

Creator Hwang crafted Squid Game as a three-season story. Gi-hun’s fate has actually already been written — Hwang wrote seasons two and three back to back, and the seasons filmed back to back.

“I wanted to conclude season two after all of Gi-hun’s attempts had gone to failure,” Hwang told THR of his plans after the second season released. “The price he had to pay was losing his longest and most precious best friend at the hands of the Front Man, and I wanted to end the second season at that very moment — then begin the next season from that space where he’s ridden with a huge amount of guilt and defeat. I wanted to see where that would carry Gi-hun further on.”

The third season, Hwang told THR in a previous cover story, will continue to focus on the clash between Gi-hun and Front Man, who also is a past winner of the game. If there’s any redemption in store for the Front Man, Hwang said season three answers that question.

“The third season will really explore that sense of loss and failure, that guilt weighing so heavily on Gi-hun. How’s he going to navigate the story further with all of that weighing down on him?” Hwang said.

He also explained why he viewed season three as the end to Gi-hun’s story. “I believe I’ve had closure to the story I wanted to tell about society through the character of Seong Gi-hun. If I ever wanted to go back to the world of Squid Game, it would be about different characters with a different story arc. For example, the masked guards. How did they end up here? What do they do in their downtime? Something like that, maybe.”

Which brings us to…

Gi-hun’s story may have an ending, but the creator of Netflix‘s global smash-hit series has ideas to continue on by turning it into a franchise.

“When we were doing season one, I was saying there was never going to be another season,” Hwang told THR when launching season two. “And so if the time comes, and it just so happens that I’m able to come up with a character or a different story, then maybe there might be a comeback. But I’m thinking more along the lines of a spinoff.”

Among the multiple ideas he shared for a spinoff series emerges a theme: filling in the gaps. Hwang suggested telling the backstories of other characters, or even exploring the lost time between seasons one and two for returning characters Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and/or Recruiter (Gong Yoo), the latter who died early on in season two.

“There’s a three-year gap. So, for example, what was the Front Man doing during those three years?” questioned Hwang. “What was the Recruiter doing? When I have some downtime, I like to just toss some ideas around and go wild with my imagination. So I guess we can be open to anything.”

After the meteoric global success of Squid Game season one, which also spawned the Netflix reality series Squid Game: The Challenge, Hwang leaned into the idea he had brewing to keep the series going. “I thought it would be the story of Gi-hun turning away from where he was at the end of season one and going back into the games in order to put a stop to the game,” Hwang has explained of how Gi-hun’s desperation to stop the games is what drove season two.

Hopefully, it will continue to drive Gi-hun through the finish line.