Squid Game games miss the point — but people want them, Netflix says

After watching and being deeply disturbed by Play octopusI felt some surprise upon seeing the revelation of Squid Game: Unleashed earlier this month. The new video game adaptation of Boss Fight on Netflix Games translates the brutal gameplay of the series into crazy multiplayer experiences. There’s still blur, but it’s cartoonish. And unlike the characters of Play octopusdeath is not the end for any of these participants. You can keep trying again and again until you perfect these less-lethal virtual versions of the originally quite deadly games.

From Squid Game: Unleashed to the future Call of Duty crossover with Play octopusand even the real-life recreation of the concept seen in YouTuber Mr. Beast’s Squid Game, every attempt at gamifying Play octopus arguably missing 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 into the widespread video game genre phenomenon of the same name (as seen in PUBG and Fortnite). Battle royale the novel is a raw depiction of a fascist regime that dehumanizes its country’s children through a deadly, performative version of military conscription. In the book, getting drafted into the titular Battle Royale is the worst thing that can happen to you. All original intent has been lost in subsequent recreations such as Fortnitewhich is funny and has Snoop Dogg in it.

All that is therefore actually that shouldn’t surprise me to see Squid Game: Unleashed and its ilk. The game’s director, Bill Jackson, told me in a recent interview that this type of adaptation is exactly what players were asking for — as opposed to, say, a Telltale Games-esque narrative game set in Play octopus‘s world that retains the social commentary and intense storytelling style of the original TV show. No, people wouldn’t have that. They wanted to compete in the Games.

“We asked the players, the members, if we make games on Netflix, what would you like to see? And the first response, and it was a huge delta, was Play octopus“, Jackson told me. “And we asked, ‘Do you like it? What do you want to do?’ And their response was, again, overwhelming: ‘I want to be a participant and I want to play those games and try to live, and I’m fine if that means I fail and I die. And so be it brutal”. And it was very clear from the first times we talked to members. So it’s still a tough mission. I think that’s what we tried to do deliver here, is you want to be – you play the role of a contestant on a stylized version of that show.”

Squid Game: Unleashed is inherently different from the source material because of its medium. As Jackson put it, “The most important thing is that you’re 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 it’s really in ultimately the loop in it.”

At this point in the interview I actually asked Jackson about Battle royale and its influence on video games, noting how much more prevalent this type of story has become across all mediums. “You can go back in the movies – Death race — There are all kinds of setups like this. Or Bruce Lee, Enter the dragon. It’s the same thing. It’s like – it’s the same kind of influences. But in video games, well, it’s a profound setup, right? We will put you in a competition and the punishment is fair – that you will be knocked out and others will move on. That pattern is – it’s inherent to video games. It’s intrinsic to us.”

As strange as it may seem, people like it. It’s not some boss at Netflix demanding that the in-house game designers take out all the social commentary Play octopus and make it something more palatable. It is the players themselves — regular people — who can’t help but yearn to compete in the games, just to see how they’d fare if it came down to it. But of course these players want to do it in a safe virtual realm where death doesn’t matter, but bragging rights still do.

That doesn’t mean people miss out on what really matters about the story Play octopusor that all these people are just stupid or shallow or something. I think, as Jackson said, this impulse reflects something else, something intrinsic, about all of us. It might be a little creepy, but that’s why all these adaptations appear in this type of format. We asked for it.