Watch real-life Squid Game tournament in Mr. Beast's YouTube video. Netflix scored one of its biggest hits of all-time with this year’s dystopian sci-fi tale of a mysterious tournament pitting ordinary debt-ridden South Korean citizens against each other in a deadly battle royale.
Squid Game indeed struck a chord with international audiences for its depiction of a hopelessly cruel societal microcosm where figuring out the rules is just the beginning when it comes to survival. Adding to the show’s sense of brutal irony is the nature of the games themselves, all seemingly innocent kids’ games like Red Light, Green Light, Tug-of-War and others, that in the world of the Squid Game take on new and horrible life-or-death implications. Now series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is talking season 2, and it seems a slam dunk that more Squid Game is coming given the massive popularity of season 1.
Squid Game season 1 was indeed so huge that it even caught the attention of noted YouTuber Mr. Beast, who has built a whole content empire by doing crazy stunts and giving away loads of money. Clearly Mr. Beast could not resist the urge to mount his own version of Squid Game featuring many of the challenges from the original show – but without the actual death and mayhem. But while Mr. Beast’s Squid Game may not have the same life-or-death implications as the battle royale played on the show, the monetary rewards are very much real. 456 people started out taking Mr. Beast’s Squid Game challenge and only one made it to the very end, earning themselves a very considerable prize of $456,000. See Mr. Beast’s Squid Game in the space below:
The first thing that leaps out is the amazing amount of effort Mr. Beast and his crew put into recreating the look of Squid Game, right down to the costumes and the sets. The next thing that leaps out is, yes, the game does preserve the sudden-death aspect of the Netflix Squid Game show though of course no one actually dies, they are simply dispatched with a harmless squib when being eliminated from the game. For the most part Mr. Beast does stick very close to the rules of the games in Squid Game, only deviating in those instances where it would have been impossible to exactly recreate the show. For instance, instead of having the contestants all get in a rumble to thin their numbers, Mr. Beast has them play the recruitment game from the show. Another concession is made when the final game is not Squid Game at all, but a much more American-friendly game of musical chairs.
All-in-all it’s impressive how much of the actual tension of Squid Game manages to survive the translation to a much more benign and harmless iteration. Ultimately though, the vibes given off by Mr. Beast’s Squid Game are a lot more laid back and fun than those that came from the Netflix show, which ultimately presented a very dark vision of the world.
Source: Mr. Beast/YouTube