Is Netflix's Squid Game: The Challenge Rigged? The Controversy Explained

Anyone who watched Netflix's hit 2021 South Korean drama "Squid Game" knows that the game in question — wherein people desperate for financial help fight to the death for an enormous cash prize — is brutal, unforgiving, and seems like a genuinely awful experience. According to a report in Rolling Stone from February 2023, the streamer's reality competition based on the series titled "Squid Game: The Challenge," was just as terrible to film — though, thankfully not nearly as lethal. Not only were filming conditions during one specific game reportedly horrible, but some former contestants made claims that the entire thing was rigged. None of the contestants were named in the article due to NDAs.

The contestants were exceedingly blunt when they spoke to the outlet. "It was just the cruelest, meanest thing I've ever been through," one said. "We were a human horse race, and they were treating us like horses out in the cold racing and [the race] was fixed."

So, how was the race fixed? The report provided several examples, but one particularly egregious one comes from two contestants who allege that when the show purchased two airline tickets for them to fly to London to film, their return tickets were also available — meaning the show knew precisely when they'd be eliminated. "Instead of 'Squid Game,' [they] are calling it 'Rigged Game.' Instead of Netflix, they're calling it 'Net Fix,' because it was clearly obvious," another contestant quipped.

Another part of the exposé claimed that during the filming of the Red Light, Green Light game — a filming process that seemed to present the vast majority of the problems outlined by the piece — contestants successfully crossed the finish line, only to be eliminated.

As three contestants described what they nicknamed the "38-second massacre," they detailed a scenario where a bunch of them made it across the finish line with time to spare and simply waited around for producers to tell them what to do next. Then, the "blood squib packs" — which, presumably, were meant to mark those who didn't manage to get across the finish line before the clock ran out — exploded way after the fact, and all of them were informed that they'd been eliminated. That group didn't take it well. "They went crazy," one contestant recalled. "It really wasn't a game show. It was a TV show, and we were basically extras in a TV show," another contest said while explaining that a lot of it seemed carefully planned.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that reality shows — yes, even competition-based ones — manipulate scenarios and make careful edits to ensure certain outcomes. (Some shows, like Bravo's "Vanderpump Rules," employ particularly masterful editing to get their points across.) Contestants on "Squid Game: The Challenge," though, have alleged that the on-set behavior from camera operators and producers was nothing short of egregious.

Take this example from a contestant who claims that, like the previous example of the "38-second massacre," she was eliminated even though she got across the Red Light, Green Light finish line with five seconds still on the clock. It was then, as she was waiting to leave, that she saw that a younger contestant and his mother were still being filmed ... and not only that, but the show added time to the clock just to feature the duo. "This kid is sitting at the finish line, he's crying, and cameras are on him and he's waiting for his mom," the contestant said. "They added [more time] to the clock for her to get across because she was one of the people that they wanted to be in the show."

All of the claims regarding on-set manipulation are bad enough, but during the nine-hour shoot for the Red Light, Green Light game, contestants made some extremely serious accusations. Namely, they said that they were forced to maintain frozen poses for the bulk of the nine hours, only moving from time to time ... a condition made worse by the fact that they weren't appropriately dressed for the freezing cold weather. The cold (which the outlet says was as low as 14 Fahrenheit) was so severe that some contestants got sick and collapsed, and while medics attended to the fallen players, people in pink "Squid Game" guard suits would block the process from view so everybody else could stay frozen in place.

"People were beating themselves up, including myself, around the fact that you've got a girl convulsing and we're all stood there like statues. On what planet is that even humane?" one contestant revealed. "Obviously, you would jump and help — that's what our human nature is for most of us. But absolutely it's a social experiment. It played on our morals and it's sick. It's absolutely sick."

"There's $4.5 million up for grabs and if you move, you are out," another contestant said. "I noticed a lot of people with the idea that they are going to change their family's lives. These people were willing to die. Somebody says, 'I'm going home with this, I don't care what it takes.' I think the producers wanted that. They wanted people to not think about their health, to not care about their safety." Other injuries contestants claim they incurred include herniated discs and torn knee tendons (from a fall), pneumonia, and ear infections.

Some contestants opined about how the allegedly terrible experience they shared filming "Squid Game: The Challenge" just wasn't what they expected. "It's not like we signed up for 'Naked and Afraid' or 'Survivor,' where you're gonna eat ants and it's gonna be grim — that was not the game," one said. "The funny thing is," another mused, "equality and fairness was the main theme of the original Squid Game."

Was it, though? The competition depicted in "Squid Game" was a brutal, predatory exercise created by wealthy, sadistic donors who treated human life with little to no respect. The contestants were, to put it lightly, manipulated by the system behind the game into participating, and were targeted due to their precarious financial positions. Not only that, but if they moved during Red Light, Green Light, or lost a game of tug of war, they were quite literally killed on the spot. None of this is to say that the alleged misconduct on the set of "Squid Game: The Challenge" is acceptable in the slightest. It is to say, though, that perhaps a reality competition series based on such a terrifying and ugly prospect is sort of an iffy concept in the first place.