Re-entering the Squid Game is both exhilarating and stressful. While we sit safely on our couches, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) struggles to seek revenge against the game he remains trapped in—both literally and metaphorically.

Squid Game creator, writer, and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has found a way to raise the stakes in Season 2. However, the season’s biggest win is its expansion of the world both surrounding and within the games.

The Worldbuilding of Squid Game

The color palette and settings of Squid Game are instantly recognizable. The sickly sweet pastels, juxtaposed with the striking pink suits of the Pink Guards, contrast subtly with the muted tones of the outside world. Though Gi-hun escaped the games and eventually returned, the games have taken on a new shape that continues to loom over everyone involved.

In Season 2, the world of Squid Game expands through three key locations that play a significant role in the narrative. Let’s explore these settings and how they deepen the show’s worldbuilding.

How the Games Haunt the Real World

Two years after winning the games and choosing to stay in South Korea instead of joining his daughter in California, Gi-hun is hiding out in the Pink Motel. Purchased with his blood money, the compound serves as his base for planning revenge.

The outside world has always looked starkly different from the vivid world of the games. It’s grounded, yet the pervasive darkness and artificial lighting make the world feel isolating, taxing, and inescapable. However, something about the real world has changed.

From the pink doors of the Pink Motel to the chair the Salesman (Gong Yoo) sits on while playing a deadly game with Gi-hun, the game’s color scheme haunts Gi-hun in subtle ways. Even small production design details—like the outdated calendar, dead plants, and cobwebs—highlight Gi-hun’s obsession with rediscovering the games.

But the games are not the only thing haunting Gi-hun. Palm trees etched into the windows symbolize his longing for his family in Los Angeles, reminding him of the life he left behind. Each decision he has made lingers like a ghost. Whether Gi-hun is consciously aware of it or not, the audience understands how these small details reflect his psyche.

While Gi-hun remains the main character, the secondary story—focused on police officer Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) and his attempts to help Gi-hun take revenge on the games while saving his brother, In-ho (Lee Byung-hun)—emphasizes the distinct differences between their realities. Jun-ho, who never participated in the games, is obsessed with finding the island. He partners with Sea Captain Park (Oh Dal-su) to rediscover it and take down its superiors. Jun-ho’s world isn’t as oppressive as Gi-hun’s, but it is characterized by nature working against him.

During the season’s climax, a failed mission and a heavy rainstorm trap Jun-ho and his team on the boat. Refusing to turn back, the crew struggles against the elements, unable to move forward yet unwilling to retreat. While the people behind the games can’t control the weather, their influence makes them seem like untouchable forces rivaling deities. Their oppressive nature looms over Jun-ho as he aids Gi-hun in dismantling the games.

Returning to the Dormitory and Games

When Gi-hun returns to the games, things feel all too familiar yet subtly different. While the iconic color palette remains, there are nuanced changes that leave both the audience and Gi-hun second-guessing themselves.

The Dormitory

The biggest change in the games is the dormitory, where players eat, sleep, and occasionally fight for their lives. A new voting system forces players to press a blue circle to stay, or a red X-shape to leave. These symbols, embedded into the floor, create a physical and metaphorical divide between the two factions.

The color associated with each choice is significant. Players are forced to choose between red and blue—a long-standing literary device in film. The most famous example of this is the red pill or blue pill choice in The Matrix, which is used to evoke a similar allegorical tension and build character arcs. 

Blue symbolizes ignorance, and each player who presses that button is choosing to believe in a system designed to chew them up and spit them out. Make it a blue circle, and another layer of how they continue to make round decisions that harm them is impossible to miss. 

The red X-shape, however, doesn’t offer salvation. Remember how everyone left Season 1 and then came back after a few days in their financially strained situations? That’s because the red X captures the false truth that waits for the players outside the game. Sure, escaping is great, but everyone chooses to be in the games for one reason or another. No matter their choices, the players are stuck in the fatal games. 

The Game Room

The Red Light, Green Light location remains one of Squid Game’s most iconic set pieces. Though it appears nearly identical—with the massive doll, painted walls, and sunny exterior—subtle details, like the packed dirt and shifting shadows, make Gi-hun question whether this is the same game with the same rules.

Many of the other spaces create the illusion of childhood nostalgia. With painted clouds on the walls or equipment made larger to make the players feel small in the space, everything is designed to evoke childhood nostalgia. Even though these are deadly games, they are still games that everyone can play. 

This season goes further, taking audiences beyond the players’ experiences and into the world of the Pink Guards.

Entering the World of the Pink Guards

There was a lot we didn’t know about the Pink Guards in Squid Game throughout Season 1, but the second season opened up the doors and explored more of their world through Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young). 

Much like how the players are targeted, the Pink Guards are recruited through their financial hardships. No-eul’s backstory suggests that the games’ leaders find people who need money for one reason or another, and are willing to cooperate with the deadly games because they have nowhere else to turn. 

Not every guard is evil or attempting to sell organs on the black market—which, yes, they are doing again this season despite the kerfuffle that happened two years ago. Whether they are the player or the guard, desperate people will fall for the games’ allure of money and power. 

We can see this narrative played out in the Pink Guards’ outfits, which are not technically pink. The magenta, which is a mix of red and pink, symbolizes the illusion of power. While the guards are seen as a threat to the players, the guards have to carefully follow a certain set of rules or they won’t have the luxury of stepping away from the games. Even the orange rooms remind the guards that they have no control and are being oppressed and exploited by the system at work. 

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Squid Game Season 2 had a massive reputation to uphold. It not only needed to replicate the success of the first season but also subvert audience expectations. By broadening the story’s world, the show achieves this brilliantly. This approach deepens the central themes, adds narrative richness, and invites audiences to return to its layered universe time and time again.