A £3.5m prize fund and outrageous lying: Behind the scenes of the Squid Game: The Challenge
"Player 238. Eliminated." The blood pack strapped to my chest explodes, covering a perfectly nice white thermal top in a foul-smelling black ink. Around me, people fall to the ground one-by-one as their packs are also detonated. Some really milk the moment (for their socials, of course). Black-masked guards look on, impassive. Execs from Netflix giggle. On the cavernous set of Squid Game: The Challenge , they have just killed off 100 journalists and influencers. Some satisfaction there, I'm sure.
Rewind a few hours and, on a cold January day on the outskirts of Reading, we are all being kitted out in those eerily familiar teal-and-cream tracksuits and white pumps. I am, as it says on my jacket, water bottle and bum bag (complete with toothpaste and brush), player No 238. We are about to experience a day in the life of a competitor on the huge-budget game show (prize: $4.65m, which is around £3.5m) and, if those allegations from the set of the first series are true – of which more shortly – I am mightily glad to be wearing those thermals. There is nothing, however, to protect me from the back-stabbing of my fellow players.
Squid Game: The Challenge is a spin-off from the wildly successful Squid Game , the Korean drama in which 456 contestants compete in a lurid competition that sees them playing children's games. The winner gets 45.6bn South Korean won (£24.2m). The 455 losers get killed. More cultural behemoth than TV show, season one of Squid Game is the most-watched series on Netflix (in both numbers of views and hours consumed). The second and third series come in at three and four.
The British game show (it's made by Studio Lambert, the company behind The Traitors ) mirrors the Korean drama, with 456 contestants competing for the cash prize (though, crucially, no one is killed). The first series was also a hit – it was the number one show on Netflix globally in its week of release – and won Bafta, Royal Television Society and British Press Guild awards in 2024.
Whatever your thoughts on turning a savage critique of cut-throat capitalism into a game show in which contestants are encouraged to form alliances, then backstab and double-cross for an eye-watering sum of money, the results were entertaining. Pleasingly, a mild-mannered but steely middle-aged mother won the grand prize.
Pink-jumpsuited guards: The British game show version of Squid Game mirrors the orginal Korean drama - Netflix
Watching series one, I was amazed at how readily players started making pacts, splitting off almost instantly into different social groups. However, once inside the dorm room, our band of journalists and influencers quickly did the same. The awe-inspiring effect of the enormous dorm room, with its hundreds of bunk beds, is deliberate, according to producer Anna Kidd. "We want to pull them out of reality as quickly as we can," she says, "make them forget about the preconceptions they came in with."
And the 456 contestants for this second series have preconceptions. They had, after all, seen series one. The programme-makers' challenge this time was how to wrong-foot people who thought they had the game worked out. As such, from the very first moment, things don't pan out as the players are expecting – and curveballs are thrown at regular intervals. "Even during the casting period, people came in with an idea of how they wanted to play the game," says executive producer Nicola Brown.
The idea, says Kidd, was to "kick things off in a way that absolutely pulled the rug out from under them". Within seconds of entering the dorm room, the 456 players are asked to make a decision that will colour their entire experience... of which I'll say no more. "People come in thinking they have a plan," says Brown. "But whether that plan survives first contact is another question."
'Player 238 eliminated': Chris's blood pack explodes as he exits the game - Netflix
Most of the series two players – from family duos to dropouts to one particularly intense New York cop – do indeed come with plans. While there are the usual tactics of be-a-wallflower or be-an-alpha, this time round there is a lot more subterfuge. We see play-acting, gaslighting, double-bluffing and, in the case of one brass-necked contestant, some outrageous lying.
With players seemingly being 90 per cent American, there is the usual US-style emotion and histrionics, with many tearfully saying they are doing it for their family. Only some of them are lying. Far more entertaining is the stoner who says he wants the money to buy a new tooth and a Burger King restaurant. Or the young man who dreams of a year's supply of orange juice.
It is easy to see why they fall quickly into homesick tears or playground dynamics. Inside the huge dorm, with the bunk beds, children's pictures on the wall and dozens of strangers, dressed in my comfy, baggy tracksuit, I feel a little like I am on my first day at nursery.
No time to mope. Those pink-jumpsuited guards have marched us off to play those infamous games. In what looks like a lurid gym hall, we are put into groups of five before having our legs lashed together for a terrifying six-legged race. This is Pentathlon, a high-stress event introduced in season two of Squid Game , in which two teams race around a running track, stopping periodically to take on a game. I bagsy the straightforward jegi – hacky sack – as I am the token Brit and play "soccer". I feel like a coward and pity the poor woman who has to play gonggi , the fiendishly difficult stone-catching game.
Later, we wander onto the set of Mingle, the deadly carousel with its horrible, eerie music. We also play a brand new game, never seen before in the Squid Game universe, called Slides and Ladders. The set is a giant version of Snakes and Ladders, with some "snakes" (the slides) leading to elimination.
'Inside the huge dorm I feel a little like I am on my first day at nursery' - Netflix
In 2023, the show came in for criticism. Firstly from critics and viewers repulsed by the very concept of the programme. "If the corrupt forces of capitalism could be made into a shambling corpse of television, it would look like Squid Game: The Challenge ," wrote one reviewer. Brown doesn't see an issue: "People have agency, so it's up to them whether they are mean to each other or not. The Challenge exists in a different sphere [to Squid Game ]. No one actually gets stabbed in the back. Our show brings a warmth to it, because it's about human experience."
She's right, of course. But human experience can be very dark.
Then there was the more concrete controversy – allegations of dreadful filming conditions, injury, and foul play. During the Red Light Green Light game (Grandmother's Footsteps on these shores), some contestants claimed the filming took place in freezing conditions, over the course of a full day. Two claimed to have developed hypothermia , one said he suffered nerve damage. "The conditions were absolutely inhumane," reported another.
There were also claims that the game was rigged in favour of certain players. Netflix denied this last point strenuously at the time, while also saying that they took all appropriate safety precautions.
"No one has ever tried to deny it was very cold that day," says producer Stephen Yemoh, "but we take health and safety very seriously. We are robust in our procedures and we did everything in our power to make it fair for the players." Having experienced a day on set, hanging around for hours in a chilly studio – even with thermals under your teal tracksuit – isn't necessarily the best fun. It is easy to see how an icy cold-snap would make that less pleasant still.
The contestants prepare to have their legs lashed together for the terrifying six-legged race called Pentathlon - Netflix
Perhaps not uncoincidentally, series two slightly downplays the importance of the games, and brings in far more action in the dorm room. In this run, there is an increase in psychological trials, moral quandaries and "tests of character".
"We've got a strapline," says Brown. "'How you play is what you are.' And that really divides people. It gave us a space to see what decisions people make when faced with a difficult choice, when given the option to eliminate someone or not. It reveals what humans might do under pressure."
Among the swathes of American contestants, a few Brits manage to stand out from the crowd in this series. Kate, a 49-year-old mother of three from Haywards Heath, says she went into the experience with no plan or expectations, beyond having a few days where she didn't have to do bedtime and the school run. She admits the dorm room, and the whole experience, was intense, intimidating and exciting.
More noticeable in the early moments are identical twins Jacob and Raul Gibson, a pair of young YouTubers from Bristol. Through no real fault of their own, they end up as targeted men almost instantly. Like Jane, they describe the atmosphere in the dorm as intense ("Insane," says Raul; "A big vibe," says Jacob). "I didn't like the food and I couldn't sleep too much. I went a bit cuckoo," says Jacob. They were surrounded by so many Americans that he developed a Stateside accent. "It was interesting," says Raul, cautiously. "They have different banter in the US."
I sympathise. Surrounding me back in January are swathes of brash American content creators, all hyper-confident, making the experience more alienating still. I've palled up with a nice, middle-aged Irish reporter. We'll stick together. Have each other's backs. It doesn't help. I'm no better at jegi than the poor lady is at gonggi .
My six-legged race is run. Player 238 is eliminated.
Squid Game: The Challenge is on Netflix on Tuesday 4 November
