The third and final season of the industry-defining Squid Game confidently delivers each new round of the deathly games with spectacularly brutal aplomb — but its attempts at worldbuilding are disappointingly tired and uneven.

Squid Game is ending with season 3 because Hwang had "the desire to put a closure to the story" after working on season 1. "In terms of why did I decide to end the story with season 3, I think that the story I wanted to tell came to a full closure at the end of season 3," he told Entertainment Weekly in December 2024.

Squid Game' creator Hwang Dong-hyuk on changing his mind about the ending, and why that character from Season 1 appears to Gi-hun in a dream.