It may be the most inevitable announcement ever made, but now it’s official: Squid Game is back for a second season. Netflix confirmed the news on Sunday, while offering some clues as to what will come in the successful Korean dystopian drama.
Squid Game became Netflix’s most-watched series when it premiered in September. The program tells the story of contestants with cash difficulties who play childhood games to have the chance to get life-changing sums of money. He inspired countless Halloween memes and costumes, boosted sales of green tracksuits, and exposed the scope of South Korea’s personal debt crisis.
On Sunday, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed some details about the show’s second season in a message posted by Netflix.
The characters Seong Gi-hun and the Front Man will return, he said, and “the man in the ddakji suit could return,” referring to the mysterious character played by actor Gong Yoo.
“They’ll also introduce you to Young-hee’s boyfriend, Cheol-su,” he added. Young-hee is an animatronic doll that detects movement that appeared in one of the games, Red Light, Green Light, and quickly became a symbol of the show.
Netflix has not said when the new season will be released, but Hwang has previously estimated that it could arrive in 2023 or 2024.
In an interview with The Guardian after the show’s success last year, Hwang said he was “thinking” of a sequel.
“I have a very high level image in my mind, but I won’t work on it right away,” he said. Last month, he told Vanity Fair that he wanted next season “the question to be asked: ‘Is true human solidarity possible?”
And the second season may not be the end of Squid Game; In a earnings call in January, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said “the Squid Game universe has just begun.”