- 7/3/2025
From deadly childhood games to psychological challenges, join us as we rank every deadly competition in all three seasons of the hit Korean survival series! Our countdown includes everything from the recruitment game that started it all to the devastating final showdowns where lives hang in the balance. Which deadly challenge would you least want to face?
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00:00Squid Game. What an odd name.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we're ranking the games in all three seasons of Squid Game,
00:10both on how sadistic they are and how vital they are to the plot.
00:15Be warned, there are spoilers ahead for all of Squid Game.
00:25Number 13. Dokji.
00:30It's not a game played on the island officially,
00:35but it is the one that gets every single character pulled into their high-risk, high-reward ordeal.
00:44Also known as POGs outside of Korea, though they're not exactly the same,
00:49the aim of the game is simply to use your paper tile to flip your opponents over, taking it in turns.
00:56Ki-hun gets 100,000 won for every game he wins,
01:00and if he loses, gets slapped by the strange businessman who challenges him in the subway station.
01:10Ultimately, even if you lose every single game of Dokji, you're not going to die,
01:15unlike all the other games.
01:17But it's still a unique and compelling introduction to the show's concept for both the audience and the characters.
01:24Number 12. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Minus One.
01:27Kang-yu returned as the salesman to give us some more recruitment games in Season 2.
01:39As Ki-hun spends time and no small amount of money trying to find him,
01:44he's eventually encountered playing Dokji again in a subway station,
01:48only to leave to go to a nearby park full of homeless people.
01:52He has them play scratch cards for food, but realizes that he's being followed.
01:56After capturing Boss Kim and his goon,
02:08he forces them to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, Minus One under duress,
02:13promising to murder the loser.
02:15During his final intensive encounter with Ki-hun,
02:18he also demands that they play Russian roulette,
02:21accepting his fate when it becomes clear that he'll lose.
02:26Number 11. Tug of War.
02:46This is a game that isn't unique to Korea.
02:49It's something all kids around the world will have played at some point.
02:52Here, the aim is to avoid falling to your death at the bottom of a vast pit,
02:59with a guillotine positioned so that when a team loses,
03:02they can't climb back out on the rope.
03:04The rope gets severed, and they plummet to their doom.
03:11It's definitely one of the least shocking and most predictable parts of the show,
03:15since it's clear what's going to happen as soon as the game is revealed,
03:18but it's still a way nobody would want to die.
03:22Worse, the fall doesn't instantly kill all the players.
03:25Some are still breathing, barely, when the guards carry them away.
03:29Number 10. Pup-ji.
03:36There are four shapes on four doors,
03:39and everybody has to pick which one they want.
03:42Just to be safe,
03:43Sung-woo suggests they each pick a different one.
03:46This turns out to be the wrong call,
03:52as they're playing a game called Pup-ji,
03:54where a shape needs to be cut out,
03:56intact from a piece of honeycomb toffee called Dalgona candy.
04:04Gi-hun inadvertently picks the hardest one,
04:07the umbrella,
04:08while Sung-woo has the easiest,
04:10the triangle.
04:10In the end, Gi-hun seems to be the only umbrella competitor
04:15able to carve his umbrella out without breaking it,
04:18which he does by licking the back of the honeycomb
04:20until it melts enough to simply pull apart.
04:23Anybody who fails is brutally shot at point-blank range.
04:27Number 9. Mingle.
04:28The last game played in Season 2 is Mingle.
04:40With too many contestants left alive
04:42into the later stages thanks to Gi-hun's coaching,
04:45a big game to eliminate large numbers of them is arranged.
04:48In this one,
05:00they all stand on a carousel,
05:02and when the music stops,
05:03they have to get into groups of a certain number
05:06called out by the announcer,
05:07and then reach one of the rooms on the periphery.
05:10If they don't reach a room before it locks,
05:12they're shot,
05:13but equally,
05:14if they have too many or too few people
05:16once they get into the room,
05:18they're also shot.
05:29With more people than rooms,
05:31it becomes clear by the end
05:32that dozens of them are going to die.
05:44Number 8. Hide and seek.
05:46As if the brutality of Mingle wasn't bad enough,
05:54the first full game played in Season 3
05:56was a classic played everywhere in the world,
05:59hide and seek.
06:01Contestants were split into two teams,
06:03red and blue,
06:05with the blue team tasked with hiding
06:07and escaping the arena,
06:09and the red team tasked with hunting down
06:11and killing them.
06:12To avoid being shot themselves,
06:24the reds had to kill someone,
06:26including Ji-hoon,
06:27who murdered Dae-ho.
06:29There were more devastating deaths in this round, too,
06:38including fan favorite Hyun-ju,
06:41stabbed when trying to help Joon-hee and Joon-ja
06:44to the exit she'd just found.
06:47The game culminates in Joon-ja having to kill her own son
06:50to protect Joon-hee and the baby.
06:53Number 7. Glass Bridge.
07:16Another game particularly cruel for those with a fear of heights,
07:19the players have to cross a bridge made of alternating glass tiles.
07:26He's gone.
07:27Oh no.
07:28Some will break, some won't,
07:30and there are also lots of gaps to make it even more dangerous.
07:33Typically, there's also a tight time limit,
07:36which leads to frustration in the group.
07:38Going last means you know which tiles are duds,
07:41but it also means you'll have to go much faster.
07:43I'm just kidding.
07:45I'm just kidding.
07:47This makes it even tenser
07:51because the three main characters are right at the back.
07:57It's also so stressful
07:58that the players forget the path they should be taking,
08:01and some refuse to move forward.
08:11You've got a 50-50 chance of dying 18 times over.
08:15Yikes.
08:15Number 6. 5v5
08:18Another game that sees large groups of contestants wiped out at once if they fail.
08:30In this one, five players are shackled together
08:33and forced to play five different playground games in a row.
08:37The games are
08:37making and releasing a spinning top,
08:40knocking over a stone with another,
08:42catching a handful of dice,
08:44keeping a jegi in the air,
08:46and dakji again.
08:55They've also got only five minutes to complete the whole course,
08:58or they're also eliminated.
09:00It's ruthless to see teams trying and failing to collaborate,
09:13but even worse when the pressure gets to be too much,
09:16and they lose.
09:17We were truly on the edges of our seats,
09:19watching people make a spinning top in some high-octane moments.
09:23Number 5.
09:29Jump Rope
09:30Similar to the glass bridge from Season 1 is Jump Rope,
09:34though it does crucially have the potential for every single contestant to survive
09:38if they're all good at it,
09:40in theory.
09:41The game we'll be playing today
09:43is Jump Rope.
09:46Each player must make their way across the bridge
09:49while jumping over the rope as it swings.
09:52Jihoon has, by now,
09:54vowed to look after the baby,
09:56so has the darkest job of going first
09:58and protecting the baby while he does.
10:01After that, though,
10:02survival instincts take over,
10:04with player 96 making it to the end
10:07and then pushing everybody else off.
10:09Come on,
10:10They almost forget they have the rope to contend with,
10:19but some of them do get tripped and thrown to the floor.
10:28The gap in the middle makes it even harder,
10:31even if you don't have other contestants to worry about.
10:34Number 4, Squid Game
10:43It's the entire show's namesake
10:51and the game we see played by a young Gi-hun in the opening scene.
10:55So, of course, it ranks highly.
10:57It's also one of the trickiest games to follow for non-Koreans,
11:01as there's no version of it outside of the country.
11:04So any kind of violence is allowed?
11:06Sure.
11:06There are no restrictions.
11:08It's just Gi-hun and Sung-woo going head-to-head,
11:11back in the very first arena we saw during Red Light, Green Light.
11:15But it quickly descends into an all-out fight rather than following the rules,
11:25which is why, despite it being the title of the show,
11:28it's not the top entry on our list.
11:30However, it's still one of the most important moments in the series,
11:34fought in the rain between the only two survivors.
11:36Number 3, Marbles
11:47This one was as tricky as it was distressing.
11:50After being encouraged to pair up,
11:52it turns out that their trusted partners are their competitors.
11:56This pits Gi-hun against the old man,
11:58Ali against Sung-woo,
12:00and perhaps worst of all,
12:01the married couple who have been there the whole time.
12:06They're actually allowed to play whatever marble game they like
12:12to claim all the marbles from their rival.
12:14Whoever has the marbles survives.
12:25It goes to show that even in a system that seemingly gives you freedom,
12:29in this case, the freedom to choose the game,
12:32you're still being controlled by rules you can't influence or change.
12:36It was certainly upsetting to watch this play out.
12:47Number 2, Sky Squid Game
12:50With eight players left in the finale,
12:59nine if you include the baby,
13:01a lot of people need to be eliminated for anyone to take home the entire prize pot.
13:06All they have to do is push at least one player off of the large platforms each round,
13:11then move on to the next one,
13:12which is easier said than done.
13:14Much like marbles,
13:24this is more of a mind game than anything else,
13:27with players arguing and trying to decide among themselves who should be pushed off.
13:35Ruthlessness is again encouraged,
13:38but the whole season ends with Ji-hun subverting expectations by taking his own life,
13:43so that 2-22, the only innocent party, takes the money.
13:47Saruman.
13:48Before we continue,
14:01be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
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14:15Number 1. Red Light, Green Light
14:19Though it was only the first true game,
14:26it was the one that introduced us and the players to the sadistic world of the show,
14:31and the ruthlessness of the front man.
14:34This is the front man speaking.
14:36Preparations for the first game are complete.
14:39You can begin now.
14:40The only rule is that you can't move while the giant horrifying doll is looking at you.
14:45Or you'll get shot by one of the many snipers around the arena.
14:57Hundreds of people are slaughtered in this first game for tripping,
15:01stumbling, or just twitching slightly.
15:04Everybody who tries to flee is killed with no mercy,
15:07in one of the show's most disturbing scenes.
15:09But it really epitomized what Squid Game is about.
15:12Simple children's games with fatal consequences and no room for error.
15:17Let us know in the comments which games you'd love to see in a potential American spin-off.
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