Netflix announced that players of its newly released Squid Game Unleashed game will be able to unlock in-game rewards for watching Squid Game Season 2.
The more players watch, the more rewards they will win.
This is something only a big company like Netflix can do, and it’s the latest form of transmedia, where Netflix is leveraging both its streaming video leadership with the Squid Game property, which has had more than 300 million viewers, and its position as a growing player in mobile games.
Squid Game Season 2 premieres on December 26, and it’s coming just after the December 17 launch of Squid Game: Unleashed, which Netflix calls the definitive Squid Game video game. Netflix’s biggest series ever is arriving with its biggest video game ever, the company said.
This adds to the list of ‘firsts’ for this game, which includes making it free for everyone – even without a Netflix membership. I’ve played the game and it presents you with challenges similar to the TV show, where you lose your life if you fail to compete well in battle royale missions.
In Red Light, Green Light, you have to run across a line during a green light. If you’re still moving when it turns to a red light, you’re shot and removed from the game. You get some mercy breaks where you can start over, but you fall behind. While the graphics are cartoon-like, there’s blood in the game when you are shot or otherwise fail. As you play more and more, you collect cash and can buy items that will help you perform better in the game. And now by watching the show, you can get even more faux cash.
It shows a lot of promise as other TV shows like Fallout and The Last of Us have been able to reignite interest in the video games they’re based on, but we’ve yet to see what happens when series and games come out on the same service at the same time.
Here’s the rewards for players. By “cash,” Netflix means in-game currency. And “wild token” refers to a chance to spin the in-game wheel for more prizes.
- Reward 1- 15,000 Cash. Free, requires 0 episodes watched
- Reward 2- 20 Wild Tokens. Watch 1 episode
- Reward 3- 20,000 Cash. Watch a second episode
- Reward 4- 25 Wild Tokens. Watch a third episode
- Reward 5- 25,000 Cash. Watch a fourth episode
- Reward 6- 50 Wild Tokens. Watch a fifth episode
- Reward 7- 50,000 Cash. Watch a sixth episode
- Reward 8- Binni Binge-Watcher Outfit. Watch a seventh episode (photos below)