‘Squid Game’ Season 2: Every New Game, Explained

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers about Squid Game Season 2.]

More than three years after Squid Game took the watching world by storm, the Netflix sensation is officially back and bloodier than ever. Season 2, which premiered on December 26, brought Seong Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-jae) back into the macabre survival games, thrusting him back into an arena that is both familiar and entirely new. 

While some of the locations and games of Squid Game Season 2 are (mostly) the same ones we saw in Season 1, like “Red Light Green Light,” “Ddjaki,” and the midnight battle-ready group sleeping quarters, others are new to the season. 

Here’s a look at all of the new games in Season 2, explained.

Bread and Lottery

The first new game of the season comes long before anyone steps foot onto the island. In the first episode of the new season, we see The Salesman (Gong Yoo) walking around to vagabonds in a park and offering them a choice of either a roll of bread or a lottery ticket. In every case, they choose the lottery ticket and lose. In the end, he’s left holding two baskets full of fresh bread and proceeds to trample all over them in front of the hungry on-lookers who declined the real food in front of them for an unlikely chance at something more. 

Six-Legged Pentathlon

This is essentially a five-person version of the three-legged race with five stops along the track. The five team members all had their inner legs bound together and had to move as a single unit through the course, which featured five games for the players to complete, one at a time, before the finish line. Each player lined up in order of their designated game. 

No Ju-han/Netflix

Flying Stone

The concept of this one is simple enough, but, as we see in the show, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to execute. The second game in the pentathlon — after ddjaki — requires the player to throw a stone to knock down another stone set out at a certain distance. It requires aim and just the right amount of force to pull it off, and, if the player misses, the entire squad has to work together to move forward and retrieve it and get back behind the line to try again. 

Gong-gi

This Korean children’s game is also known as Jacks and Seven Stones. The player has five small pieces that they have to throw a stone up and pick up another stone and repeat until all five have been caught. Then, the process starts over, with the player picking up two stones at a time, then three. The fourth step requires the player to throw one stone in the air and drop four, then toss the stone again and pick up the other four. The final trick is to toss all five stones in the air, catch them on the back of their hand, and then toss them up again and catch them all in their palm.

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Spinning Top

The goal of this version on Squid Game is to tie the string around the base and then sling it forward with enough velocity that the top spins on the ground. 

Jegi

This outdoor-friendly game features a paper toy called a jegi that the player must kick in order to keep it in the air. It’s similar to the Western game hacky sack or footbag. This is the fifth and final game in the pentathlon. 

Mingle

This game is similar to musical chairs, in that players are made to wander individually around a space until a certain number is called out, and they have to partner up into groups of that number before the time runs out. In this case, the results of not finding the right size group are deadly.  

No Ju-han/Netflix

Are there more games ahead?

In Squid Game‘s first season, the games the characters ultimately played were hinted at in the wall art in the group dormitory. In the backdrop of this season’s games, it looks like there may be another game indicated on the walls, featuring people hanging and swinging from one spike to another, like with monkey bars.

We’ll have to wait until Squid Game Season 3 arrives to find out.

Squid Game, Season 2, Streaming now, Netflix