Warning: This article contains spoilers from the Squid Game: The Challenge finale!
Squid Game: The Challenge has crowned its very first winner, but the finale is being criticized for ending the season with some underwhelming games. The reality show is based on the hit Korean drama Squid Game, which became one of the most popular shows ever released on Netflix. Squid Game season 2 is currently in the works, as is a second installment of the reality TV spin-off, which started off with 456 players competing for a chance to win $4.56 million. The Squid Game: The Challenge finale featured the final three: Sam, Mai and Phill.
Even though there’s a lot of excitement surrounding Mai’s win during the Squid Game: The Challenge season 1 finale, it seems that the final couple games themselves did not get the same reception. Fans took to Reddit to examine what went wrong in the finale, and most of them agreed that Button Test and Rock Paper Scissors didn’t live up to the hype. Heygirlwhatchadoin77 started a Reddit thread to call those games “disappointing.” They were hoping these final challenges would involve “more skill,” something “physical and mental.”
Squid Game: The Challenge Season 1 Games Explained
Cartier_and_crime questioned how the producers weren’t able to “come up with anything better” with the budget they were working with. Sparkly_glamazon noted that a lot of the Squid Game: The Challenge games “relied on luck” instead of “intelligence or ability.” In a separate Reddit thread started by GoldenPrincesaMe, Fiercelyambivalent seemed exasperated when they said, “I waited a week to watch rock paper scissors?” No-World-9874 wanted to see more strategy-based games during the finale, more along the lines of Warship, which was played earlier in the season.
Squid Game: The Challenge incorporated some iconic games from the original scripted series Squid Game, including Red Light, Green Light, Dalgona; Marbles; and Glass Bridge. Some of these, along with others like Warship, involved huge and elaborate sets that made for great TV, not just with how the games unfolded but also visually when watching as a viewer. So it’s completely understandable if Button Test and Rock Paper Scissors seemed like a letdown in comparison, especially since these games determined the Final 2 and then the winner.
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At the end of the day, though, the challenges are based on children’s games, as a few people noted on Reddit. Whether it was something big like Warship or a more simple game like Rock Paper Scissors, the finale challenges still fit perfectly alongside all the other ones. When there were more players on the show, it made sense for the games to be more elaborate. On the flip side, it might not have made as much sense to do Rock Paper Scissors earlier in the season. There’s always Squid Game: The Challenge season 2, where the producers can see what worked and what didn’t, based on online feedback.
Squid Game: The Challenge season 1 is available to stream on Netflix.
Sources: Heygirlwhatchadoin77/Reddit, GoldenPrincesaMe/Reddit, Squid Game/Instagram
