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600 Million Views Later… Netflix’s Squid Game Finale is Here
By Kelli Luu | 29 Jun, 2025
Netflix’s No.1 survival thriller returns with its final chapter after accumulating nearly 600 million global views across its first two seasons.
456 players and 45.6 billion won or 33 million US dollars had the entire world thinking about a single question, how far would you go for money?
Three years ago, the Netflix show Squid Game became a global phenomenon after the release of its very first season that featured 9 episodes. The Korean survival drama’s deadly, yet nostalgic aura made Squid Game Netflix’s most-watched series ever with over 1.65 billion hours viewed in just 28 days.
All 456 players are handpicked as they are drowning with debt when offered a very unique opportunity to compete in a series of childhood games for a chance to win the grand cash prize.
But here’s the twist. Losing one of the games also means losing your life. With classics like red light, green light, tug of war, and marbles, players’ physical and mental strength is tested, as well as their morals.
Throughout the show, we get to learn more about the contestants and watch their strategies while alliances are formed and broken and everyone is forced to confront how far they’re willing to go to survive.
And the most disturbing part of the story are the people running the games - a group of wealthy, powerful VIPs who are watching the players lose their lives purely for entertainment.
Squid Game mirrors modern day class inequality and depicts real-world desperation with the rich controlling the system and the poor playing by the rules.
Not only did the show break Netflix records, it also won 6 of its 14 nominations at the 2022 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor which was taken home by Lee Jung-jae who was the first Asian actor to win the category.
Squid Game continued with a second season that aired over two years later in December 2024. Within the first three weeks, it reached 152 million views which solidified the show’s place in pop culture. Both seasons have been viewed nearly 600 million times worldwide.
People began to dress up as the Squid Game guards for Halloween, the Dalgona candy from one of the first games in the series made an appearance in Costco, and the show’s soundtrack went viral on TikTok.
Now the long awaited third and last season has finally been released after the audience was left on a heart tugging cliff hanger. This past Friday June 25, 2025 familiar faces have returned and the show is bringing back the chaos and emotional wreckage, two things Squid Game captures best.
The first two seasons were intense and now we get to see how it all ends, but there’s one thing we know for sure, only survivors come out victorious in this game.
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