Squid Game Season 2 Teaser Trailer Sees Seong Gi-hun Looking for Revenge

Squid Game is returning for season 2 — and it is more intense than ever.

A trailer for the upcoming season of the Korean thriller picks up with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) waking up in a panic before holding up a gun in a dimly lit hallway as he faces a masked man. This comes after he left behind his dream to go to the U.S. and instead, is participating in the deathly game with revenge in mind.

Leaving viewers to see the fear in his eyes, the scene changes to show a countdown and a masked crew preparing for a new game to begin.

“We’re ready to start the game,” a voice can be heard saying in Korean. 

Nothing else is said throughout the rest of the trailer.

As buttons are pushed and a fire is set, the words “Nothing will stop the game” flash across the screen.

As the timer runs out, fans know the stress that comes with the numbers 0:00 left on the screen. Suddenly, 456 appears, the same number as the one on Gi-Hun’s uniform.

The next clip shows new participants entering the deathly game, which consists of two giant circles painted on the ground with rainbow rings around them before the screen goes black.

Season 2 of Squid Game is set to premiere on December 26. 

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Netflix released the minute-long teaser as part of its Geeked Week event for streamers, which takes place every year.

Squid Game is Netflix’s most-watched series in 94 countries, bringing in over 142 million member households and 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks. Creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk teased the plot of season 2 in June 2022.

“It took 12 years to bring the first season of Squid Game to life last year. But it took 12 days for Squid Game to become the most popular Netflix series ever,” Hwang said in a statement to Netflix. “As the writer, director and producer of Squid Game, a huge shout out to fans around the world. Thank you for watching and loving our show.”

In 2021, before season 2 was confirmed, Hwang mentioned that season 1 “ended in an open-ended way” to leave space for the series to continue.

“There are some other stories in the series that have not been addressed. For example, the story of the police officer and the story of his brother, The Front Man,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in October 2021. “So if I end up creating season 2, I’d like to explore that storyline — what is going on between those two brothers? And then I could also go into the story of that recruiter in the suit who plays the game of ddakji with Gi-hun and gives him the card in the first episode.”

The director added, “And, of course, we could go with Gi-hun’s story as he turns back, and explore more about how he’s going to navigate through his reckoning with the people who are designing the games.”

Less than a year later, Hwang shared an update with The Hollywood Reporter, saying that his writing process for the new season had commenced.

“Seong Gi-hun has become a totally new person by the end of season one, so season two is going to be about what that new Gi-hun is going to do and how things will unfold with this new kind of character,” he revealed at the time.

Season 1 of Squid Game is available to stream on Netflix. Its spin-off, a real-life competition series called Squid Game: The Challenge, is also on the service.