Survival Game Frenzy: 7 Shows Like Squid Game to Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat

Snowpiercer

We're in the post-apocalyptic world where a man-made environmental disaster has caused another ice age, and the survivors live on a gigantic train that encircles the entire globe.

The lower classes of society are at the end of the train where their life is constantly under threat. To move to the train's head, the characters have to enter a game of survival that's used as a metaphor to question the socio-economic norms and injustices of the contemporary world.

Sean Bean stars in the show, and his performance is one of the many reasons to watch it.

Insomnia

The series' characters find themselves caught up in a deadly illegal game that's held once a year in an exclusive underground casino for the rich and powerful.

As the casino's guests bet on people's lives, the participants of the game receive a drug injection that will kill them as soon as they fall asleep. The brutal game won't stop until there is only one person left alive — then, the winner gets the antidote and a chance to start a new life.

Alice in Borderland

Arisu is an obsessed, unemployed gamer who finds himself in an abandoned version of Tokyo where he and his two friends are forced to take part in dangerous survival games. Winners of the brutal contest are given "visas" that last several days, but once a player's visa expires, they're instantly executed by lasers shot from the sky.

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

The Japanese animated series is similar to Squid Game in that its main character is an unemployed man who doesn't have the ambition to change the world or even improve his own life.

But one day, Kaiji Itou is tricked by his former coworker into repaying his huge debt. Unable to find so much money fast, Kaiji agrees to take part in an illegal game on a cruise ship. That decision throws him into a life-threatening gamble where the unlucky hero has to carefully choose his gaming strategies and allies if he is to avoid a backbreaking life of servitude.

3%

Another show that is very similar to Squid Game, 3% is a Brazilian series where the characters are also divided into rich and poor. Members of the lower class have the chance to join the upper classes of society if they successfully go through a series of grueling survival games.

Only three percent of them are going to make it, and it's not hard to guess what happens to the remaining 97%.

Gantz

If you thought Squid Game was full of violence, wait until you see the Japanese animated series Gantz. The story follows high school student Kei Kurono who dies after being hit by a subway train and then finds himself in an apartment that he cannot leave.

He and other people, all of whom have also experienced death, are forced to take part in a game: the rules of the game are set by a mysterious black sphere called Gantz, and the winner is promised a chance to return to the world of the living…

Liar Game

College student Nao Kanzaki finds herself pulled into the so-called "Liar Game" where participants receive large sums of money for cheating each other out of the game, and losers remain in debt for their entire lives.

A trusting and gullible girl, Nao is unable to succeed on her own, so she turns for help to a con artist who was recently released from prison. The unlikely team-up moves through the levels of the game, cheating other talented liars and earning more money in the process.

The Japanese drama is much less violent than Squid Game, but instead, it offers a really good mental workout for viewers.