'Squid Game' creator reveals alternative way show could have ended

Netflix’s Squid Game ended on a sad but uplifting note, but it could’ve gone the other way.

Spoiler alert! The show ends with protagonist Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) killing himself so that the newborn daughter of Jun-hee/Player 222 (Jo Yu-ri) and Myung-gi/Player 333 (Yim Si-wan) is the last player left.

Antagonist In-ho/The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) then collects the baby and gives her the prize money of 45.6 billion.

Creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has revealed that the ending was initially completely different but he changed it after realizing that Gi-hun giving his life would be a better end.

“When I had a vague idea about what kind of story I wanted to tell through Seasons 2 and 3, I actually had a different ending in mind,” Hwang said.

“And then as I went through the writing process, as I created my characters, as I laid out the foundation and the outline of the story, and as I drew out the map for Gi-hun’s character arc, I realized, this shouldn’t be the way this story ends — and this is a better ending, or the right ending, for this arc," he explained.

"And so there was actually a very drastic change in the ending compared to when I just had only a vague idea about the story, and then when I really got into the writing process," he shared.

“In the finale, Gi-hun makes a choice, and originally, when I was just thinking about where the story was going to take me, it was actually the exact opposite choice,” revealed the Squid Game creator.