Spoilers below.
The dust has finally settled on Squid Game season 3, but some of those games are still living in our heads rent-free. While previous seasons tortured players with bloody rounds of red light, green light, spinning top, and more, the final chapter upped the ante with some of the deadliest contests yet. From extreme versions of hide-and-seek to jump rope, here’s what the battle royale consisted of in Squid Game’s final season.
Episode 1: “Keys and Knives”
Game of the Episode: Hide-and-Seek
Season 3 began with a chilling reinvention of a childhood classic, hide-and-seek. The rules are simple: Contestants are divided into two teams by the random draw of blue and red balls. The Blue Team, armed with keys, must hide from the Red players and try to unlock the right door to exit the course within 30 minutes. Meanwhile the Red Team, equipped with knives, is tasked with hunting down and killing the Blues.
The stakes are clear: Failure to eliminate at least one Blue player results in immediate execution for the Red players. Blue players who are unable to escape will be eliminated as well. In a macabre twist before the game, players are allowed to negotiate their fate by swapping roles, which is essentially an invitation to betray—or be betrayed—before the first move is made.
Episode 2: “The Starry Night”
Game of the Episode: Hide-and-Seek
As the stakes get higher in episode 2, so does the tension. The Blue Team’s keys are revealed to be of three distinct shapes—circle, triangle, and square—and all three are needed to unlock the right door. This means players will have to cooperate and escape together, or steal one another’s keys, to make it out alive.
Episode 3: “It’s Not Your Fault”
Game of the Episode: Jump Rope
Innocent playground games are once again taken to a lethal extreme in Squid Game season 3. In this version of jump rope, players must traverse a bridge while leaping over a swinging rope, all under the gaze of giant dolls Young-hee and Cheol-su. The challenge is as much about timing and nerve as it is about endurance: to pass, players must reach the other side within 20 minutes. The order in which they cross the bridge within the time limit, however, is entirely at their own discretion. To make the course even more dangerous, players must cross a gap in the middle of the bridge, or fall stories below to their death.
Episode 4: “222”
Game of the Episode: Jump Rope
As the fourth episode commences, the jump rope ordeal persists, but with a devastating twist: Player 222, Kim Jun-hee, has died and her baby, who was born during the games, must now bear her mother’s number. The new addition makes the stakes all the more stressful for the other players, who are now pitted against each other and an infant.
Episode 5: “○△□”
Game of the Episode: Sky Squid Game
In true Squid Game fashion, the penultimate game is a test of both strategy and savagery. Players ascend a sequence of geometric pillars—shaped as a square, triangle, and circle—each serving as the stage for a brutal pushing contest. Survival demands that the players push off at least one contestant per round.
Each round is governed by a strict 15-minute limit, initiated only when the players press a button. Those who survive each round get to move onto the next pillar and so forth, until there is only player left standing.
Episode 6: “Humans Are...”
Game of the Episode: Sky Squid Game
The series finale unfolds atop the final pillar of Sky Squid Game, where the remaining contestants grapple with the ultimate question of humanity: How much are they willing to sacrifice to survive? In this bleak social experiment, the games are not only dangerously clever, but also reveal the deepest and darkest facets of the human condition.
