Having observed and deeply disturbed by Squid GameI was somewhat surprised to see the revelation of The Squid Game: Unleashed earlier this month. The new video game adaptation of Boss Fight at Netflix Games repurposes the show's brutal gameplay into crazy multiplayer experiences. There's still blood, but it's cartoonish. And different from the characters of Squid GameDeath is not the end for any of these participants. You can keep trying again and again until you perfect these not-so-deadly virtual versions of originally quite deadly games.
Of The Squid Game: Unleashed to the next Call of Duty crossover with Squid Gameand even the real-life recreation of the concept seen in YouTuber Mr. Beast's Squid Game, each attempt to gamify Squid Game Arguably it misses the point of the show. But this is not the first time something like this has happened. Remember the novel's similar brutality and social commentary. battle royale (1999), which was adapted to the widespread phenomenon of the video game genre of the same name (as seen in PUBG and fortnite). battle royale The novel is a stark depiction of a fascist regime that dehumanizes its countries' children through a lethal and performative version of conscription. In the book, signing up for the titular battle royale is the worst thing that can happen to you. All that original intention has been lost in later recreations such as fortnitewhich is funny and has Snoop Dogg in it.
All of that is why in reality shouldn't surprise me to see The Squid Game: Unleashed and his like. The game's director, Bill Jackson, told me in a recent interview that this kind of adaptation is exactly what players asked for, as opposed to, say, a Telltale Games-style narrative game set in Squid GameThe world that retains the social commentary and intense narrative style of the original television show. No, people didn't want that. They wanted to compete in the games.
“We asked the players, the members, if we were making games on Netflix, what would you like to see? And the first response, and it was a huge delta, was Squid Game”Jackson told me. “And we asked, 'Do you like that? What do you want to do?' And his response was, again, overwhelming: “I want to be a contestant and I want to play those games and try to live, and I'm okay if that means I fail and die.” And it could be brutal.” And that was very clear from the first times we spoke to members. So we wanted that to be true. Now, it's still a difficult mission, but we did it. I really think that's what we're trying to offer here: you're going to be: you play the role of a contestant on a stylized version of that show.”
The Squid Game: Unleashed is inherently different from the source material because of its medium. As Jackson said: “The main thing is that you are a contestant and the penalties are brutal if you don't win. But guess what? It's a video game. If you fail, let's try again. And ultimately, that's really the loop.”
At this point in the interview, I asked Jackson about battle royale and its influences on video games, noting how much more prevalent this type of story has become across all media. “You can go back to the movies. death race – There are all these kinds of settings like this. Or Bruce Lee, Enter the dragon. It's the same. It's like… it's the same kind of influences. But in video games yes, it's a deep setting, right? We are going to put you in a competition and the penalty is fair: you will be eliminated and others will move on. That pattern is… it's intrinsic to video games. It is intrinsic to us.”
Oddly enough, people like it. It's not a Netflix executive demanding that internal game designers remove all social commentary from Squid Game and turn it into something more palatable. is he the players themselves – normal people – who can't help but want to compete in the games, just to see how they would fare, if necessary. But of course, these players want to do it in a safe virtual realm, where death doesn't matter, but bragging rights do.
That doesn't mean people miss what's really important about the story of Squid Gameor that all these people are just stupid or superficial, or something like that. I think, as Jackson said, this drive reflects something else, something intrinsic, in all of us. It may be a little creepy, but that's why all of these adaptations appear in this type of format. We ask for it.