4 – Marbles
At the start of Marbles, many people team up with those they’re closest to, and that makes this game all the more heartbreaking when they realise that they must take all their opponents’ marbles within 30 minutes, or face execution.
We see some players reflect on their own lives and play fairly, and we also see others take advantage of those with kind natures (Ali and Sang-woo). This game also guarantees that half the players will be wiped out – your odds are 50:50, no matter what.
Marbles shows that you can’t trust anyone.
3 – Glass Bridge
Like Jump Rope, Glass Bridge is a nightmare for anyone with a fear of heights. However, there’s an added layer of trickery involved in figuring out the right path across these stepping stones without falling to your death.
That means that players often become selfish, refusing to move any further in case they accidentally step on breakable glass rather than the safe, tempered panes. While some try to work as a team, others are happy to sacrifice people to find the correct route.
Glass Bridge is a true testament to players learning ruthlessness.
2 – Sky Squid Game
By the time the final game of the show comes around, Sky Squid Game, most of the contestants left standing have no morals left. They’re perfectly willing to kill for their own gain, even if it means sacrificing someone completely innocent, making it even more brutal than the original Squid Game finale.
This game takes everything that we’ve seen before: betrayal of trust, pack mentality, and general panic, and combines it all into a gruesome spectacle for the entertainment of the VIPs.
Sky Squid Game encapsulates this awful competition perfectly.
1 – Hide and Seek
The reason Hide and Seek ranks number one on this brutality list is that it’s the first time that players have been asked to actively murder other players to win. While other games have encouraged selfishness, and some people choose to take a lethal route, they have no choice here… if they’re on the red team.
While they are given a ‘fair’ choice that allows them to switch teams and hide, those in the blue bibs have a much harder job by either running down the clock, or finding an exit with two other keys. It’s literally asking players to kill or be killed.
That sort of dilemma finally destroys the players’ moral compass and sets the tone of the final two games, with some players actively enjoying killing others, and dehumanising themselves. It’s also one of the most heartbreaking games of the show, with some major players eliminated, even those who are trying to survive in the kindest way possible.
Hide and Seek turns players into monsters, simple as that.