Squid Game’s second season has a new trailer, and if you haven’t watched the first then do yourself a favour and avoid spoiling it. Netflix’s biggest-ever launch and a global smash hit, Squid Game followed 456 indebted competitors taking part in a series of deadly childrens’ games for huge cash prizes, all observed and controlled by a shadowy cabal of, basically, rich sadists.

The first season ended with the victory of player 456 Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae, who walks away with a giant cash prize that should solve all his life issues: but he’s so traumatised by what he’s experienced he vows revenge. Squid Game 2 is set three years after the first series and sees Gi-hun return to the games alongside new competitors, with the trailer focusing on how competitors can vote after each game to end the events or continue for bigger prizes: Gi-hun is desperately trying to help his fellow players and make them understand the nature of the games, but not entirely successfully.

We see the familiar masked guards and the first game, a repeat of season one: Red Light Green Light. A giant doll stands at the end of an arena, facing backwards, and competitors must advance towards it: But stop when the doll turns. We see Gi-hun trying to tell players how this works, before a woman panics thanks to a bee, and is promptly shot through the head. We subsequently see Gi-hun tell the competitors he’s been here before and they have to get out, but some don’t believe him, some think he’s a plant, and others simply remain focused on the huge suspended piggy bank of cash.

In Season 2 Gi-hun, who survived Season 1, returns to the games, not to win this time around, but to put an end to these games,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game’s writer, director and producer, told Reuters. “There is going to be a larger number of characters this time and more intriguing games that are all worthy of a lot of the viewers’ love and support.”

“Gi-hun is a very different person in Season 2,” said actor Lee Jung-jae. “This time around he wants revenge. He wants to catch the people behind the games and he wants to bring them to justice.”

Hwang was also asked about a recent Deadline report, which said that David Fincher is currently working on an English-language version of Squid Game.

“I don’t think it’s official yet, so I cannot tell much about it,” said Hwang, essentially confirming the news. “But, you know, I respect him as a filmmaker and creator. So if he does it, you know, I’m looking forward to seeing it, watching it.”

This does make enormous sense: Netflix is acutely conscious of maximising its returns on Squid Game, particularly in the context of streaming competitor Amazon and MrBeast essentially stealing the idea for the upcoming Beast Games. The streaming giant has such a massive subscriber base already that it needs to show it has the capacity to produce regular smash hits that can retain and even grow its audience amid fierce competition: Netflix said that Squid Game season 1 was watched for 1.65 billion hours in its first four weeks of release.

The second series of Squid Game will release on Netflix on 26 December 2024. The season two promotional event also saw the platform announce that the third and final season of Squid Game will arrive in 2025.