Netflix Bets That ‘Squid Game’ Can Turbocharge Its Video Game Ambitions

To say Netflix has a lot riding on the return of Squid Game is an understatement.

The South Korean series immediately emerged as a flagship show when it debuted three years ago. Since then there have been countless Halloween costumes worn, tickets to live Squid Game experiences sold, and ample anticipation for the show’s return to the streaming service.

And the debut of its second season on Dec. 26 — one day after Netflix hosts its first NFL games, where the show is expected to receive a healthy promotional push — only further underscores the company’s bet on the IP.

So big is Squid Game to Netflix, that the service is also endeavoring to use the show to help boost its still-nascent video game business, making a couple of unprecedented strategic moves in the process.

On Dec. 17, Netflix released its first Squid Game video game, Squid Game: Unleashed. The multiplayer battle royale game (a format familiar to Fortnite fans) is, in a first for Netflix, available for free to everyone, regardless of whether they are Netflix subscribers.

Bill Jackson, the director of Squid Game: Unleashed, tells The Hollywood Reporter that the game’s debut is “a big moment, and it’s an ambitious title, and we’re pretty proud to be able to launch it during the premiere of season two of the biggest show we’ve ever done.”

Now, Netflix is adding another wrinkle, a perk that only it can offer its subscribers: The more Squid Game episodes they watch on Netflix, the more rewards they will get in the video game itself. And for those users that binge the whole season, not only will they receive in-game cash (which can be used to purchase items or player skins), but they will also receive a special “Binge Watcher” skin to show off to other players.

“When you see it, you will know the way that that was was obtained,” Jackson says. “And that’s actually the number one way that self-expression happens in Squid Game: Unleashed, is by choosing each character and customizing them. So this is a new way to do that, only for people that have watched the show, so it shows your fandom even more.”

The game is the culmination of talks between Netflix’s entertainment team and the games team, trying to figure out how each side can help the other.

“There’s a lot of conversations about, how do we reinforce each other? How do we take this cool idea that you’re doing in the show and put it in the game?” Jackson says. “Or, how do they take something that’s in the game and bring it back to one of the other expressions?”

“When people are watching the show, they might think about the game and want to go play it and express it that way,” he adds. “Or when they play the game, they might go to the show and or go see the touring experience, or go find some way to express their fandom with merchandise. There’s a lot of different ways you can express fandom.”

Squid Game: Unleashed has been in development for “a couple of years,” Jackson says, and it has been a complex endeavor given the long lead-time required to create a AAA game.

It’s easy to forget given Netflix’s immense scale in streaming, but its gaming ambitions are still new and still (comparably) small. It only announced its intention to add games in 2021, and turbocharged it the following year with a flurry of acquisitions for mobile game developers (including Boss Fight Entertainment, the studio that development Squid Game: Unleashed, and the place where Jackson worked).

The company named Epic Games veteran Alain Tascan to be president of its gaming division earlier this year, and placed a particular emphasis on its own IP, or big acquired games like the Grand Theft Auto franchise or Sonic the Hedgehog.

But Squid Game is a particularly important effort, with a flagship show helping to launch a flagship game.

“This was really about bringing in people that may not be familiar with the show, or people that really haven’t tried a game from us yet, and letting them do that,” Jackson says. “And I kind of feel like right around the holidays, it’s the perfect time to do something.”

The company spoke to fans about they show (and for that matter the reality spinoff Squid Game: The Challenge), to try and determine what they liked the most. The brutal competition won out, and helps spark the battle royale format that the company is using for the game.

And just like that other big battle royale game, Squid Game: Unleashed won’t be static. Netflix plans to keep it fresh and current and of a quality level to keep people playing, hopefully long after season two has been binge-watched off the charts.

“There are games that will appear in [Squid Game season two] that people have not seen, and some of those games will make it into our game,” Jackson says. “Some of the things you see in the show will make it into our game after that airs. And that’s another way that we’re kind of building that cross-colonization between the game and the show.”

“So I think, yeah, this moment is very important in terms of what we’re what we’re doing, but the quality of the game has to be there,” Jackson adds. “If the game is not of quality, everything else doesn’t work.”