If you just finished watching Squid Game Season 3 and are wondering what to watch next, you are not alone. Many viewers around the world are now looking for Korean dramas that bring the same kind of thrill, tension, and deeper meaning. After all, Squid Game helped shine a light on the wide variety of Korean storytelling. The good news is that K-dramas today offer far more than just romance. From survival thrillers to emotional horror and sharp social commentary, there is so much more to explore. Whether you want action, suspense, or something to make you think, the K-drama world has something for every viewer.
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Squid Game gave us a close look at how unfair the world can be. It reminded us how far people will go when they feel trapped or desperate. But it’s not the only show of that kind. Many Korean dramas explore similar struggles in different ways. Whether through deadly competitions or social experiments, these stories ask us what it means to survive when everything is against us. That’s why we have handpicked ten K-dramas that fans of Squid Game will enjoy. Whether it is survival, resistance, or the cost of staying human, these shows continue the conversation that 2021’s smash hit started.
1) Pyramid Game (2024)
Baekyeon Girls’ High School seems like a top-ranked school from the outside, but something disturbing is happening behind closed doors in Pyramid Game. Every month, the students take part in a secret vote where they assign each other a grade from A to F, not based on academics but on popularity. The girl who receives an F becomes the class outcast. From that point on, everyone else is allowed to bully, ignore, or isolate her. Teachers say nothing. The school turns away. When a quiet transfer student becomes the new target, she refuses to follow the unspoken rules. Instead of breaking down, she chooses to push back.
If you were drawn to Squid Game for its themes of social injustice, manipulation, and quiet resistance, Pyramid Game delivers all of that in a school setting that feels both small and incredibly tense. Just like the players in Squid Game, these students are trapped in a system that rewards cruelty and punishes kindness. Some follow the rules to stay safe. Others turn cold just to survive. And one named Seong Su-ji, like Gi-hun and Sae-byeok, finds the courage to resist. There may be no prize money or physical traps, but the emotional cost is just as high. Pyramid Game asks what happens when people are forced to choose between being safe and doing what is right, and who you become when everyone is bent on breaking you.
2) Death’s Game (2023)
In Death’s Game, Choi Yee-jae feels hopeless after years of disappointmentf and chooses to end his life. But instead of dying, he meets Death in person, and she gives him a punishment. He must live through twelve different lives, each beginning at the moment of death. Sometimes he wakes up wealthy, sometimes poor. Some lives are peaceful while others are full of pain and violence. He keeps all his memories, and every time he dies, he is forced to start again in someone else’s body, while he learns more about life with each version of himself.
If you connected with the way Squid Game showed the emotional toll of living at the edge of society, Death’s Game brings a powerful new perspective. It takes one broken man and shows him how people at every level struggle to survive in an unfair world. Each life forces him to confront new fears and choices. Some test his morality. Others show him kindness he never expected. Like Squid Game, it looks closely at what desperation does to people and how even the smallest acts of strength can shift everything. It teaches him what it means to live and what makes a life worth living at all.
3) Bloodhounds (2023)
Bloodhounds follows two young boxers who meet in a tournament and quickly form a bond. Both are trying to escape poverty and help their families, but when they take out a loan from the wrong people, their lives spiral into a world of crime, fear, and brutal violence. Caught in the grip of dangerous loan sharks, they fight not just with their fists, but with everything they have to protect the people they love. Their strength is tested outside the ring, where the rules are cruel and no one plays fair.
Squid Game made us think about how money can be used to control and destroy; Bloodhounds feels just as real. This show looks at how quickly debt turns into danger and how systems built to support the powerful can crush those trying to do the right thing. Like the players in Squid Game, the two leads in Bloodhounds are not just fighting for themselves. They carry the weight of others on their backs, and their loyalty becomes a form of resistance. The action is intense, but what stays with you is the idea that even when everything is stacked against you, some people keep fighting because giving up is simply never an option.
4) All of Us Are Dead (2022)
All of Us Are Dead begins with an ordinary high school day that turns into a nightmare. A strange virus spreads through the classrooms and turns students and teachers into zombies within hours. The survivors are trapped inside the building, cut off from the outside world, with no help coming. As fear spreads just as fast as the infection, students must make impossible choices between loyalty and self-preservation.
If Squid Game left you thinking about what happens when systems stop protecting the most vulnerable, All of Us Are Dead will do the same. The school becomes a microcosm of a failed society, where only the rich and powerful remain protected while everyone else is left behind. Like in Squid Game, the characters face emotional and moral challenges as much as physical ones. Betrayal, guilt, and sacrifice play a huge role in each decision. The show portrays moments of real courage from teenagers who were never meant to fight for their lives.
5) Sweet Home (2020 – 2024)
Sweet Home begins with a grieving and isolated Cha Hyun-su, who moves into an old apartment complex after losing his family. Soon after, strange things start happening. People begin turning into terrifying monsters that take shape based on their darkest desires and fears. As the outside world collapses, the residents are forced to stay inside, where survival becomes just as hard. Supplies run low, tempers rise, and no one can be sure who will transform next. With danger closing in from all sides, it becomes a test of humanity.
Similar to Squid Game, Sweet Home traps its characters in a confined space where survival depends not only on physical strength but on hard emotional choices. The real monsters are not just outside. They also live in the doubts, fears, and anger of the people inside. This show brings together strangers from different walks of life, and we watch how they respond when everything starts to fall apart. If you were drawn to Squid Game for how it showed society breaking down under pressure, Sweet Home offers that same intensity through horror, suspense, and raw emotion.
6) Black Knight (2023)
Black Knight takes place in a future where pollution has made the air deadly, and clean oxygen is a rare resource controlled by the powerful. Most people are forced to live in restricted zones with barely enough to survive. A group of delivery drivers, known as “knights”, put their lives on the line to bring supplies to those who have been forgotten. One of them, known as 5-8, begins to uncover how the government and the wealthy are hiding the truth. As he learns more, he becomes a quiet threat to a system that protects the privileged and leaves everyone else behind.
If you connected with Gi-hun’s quiet strength in Squid Game, you will see something similar in 5-8. He is calm, kind, and thoughtful, but unwilling to ignore injustice. Black Knight shows how systems built by the elite are designed to keep others weak and dependent. The action is exciting, but what makes the show powerful is how ordinary people stand up to those in control. The divide between the privileged and the powerless becomes life or death, and how rebellion starts with just one person refusing to stay silent. Black Knight is a story of survival, justice, and hope, told through a lens that will feel familiar to anyone who saw Squid Game as more than just a game.
7) Dark Hole (2021)
In Dark Hole, mysterious black smoke rises from a sinkhole and turns people into violent, mutated creatures. As the infected attack anyone nearby, a former detective and a survivor must fight to stay alive in a ruined city. But the real danger is not just the monsters. It is also the fear and desperation among the uninfected who are trying to survive.
We see how quickly society can fall apart when people are pushed to the edge. There is a strong focus on power, and how people treat each other when survival becomes the only goal. Dark Hole goes beyond horror and explores deeper questions about trust, humanity, and the will to keep going when everything feels lost. If you liked Squid Game for its tense atmosphere and candid look at what people are capable of under pressure, Dark Hole brings those same feelings to life in a dark and dangerous setting.
8) Liar Game (2014)
Liar Game is about Nam Da-jung, a kind, honest young woman who gets tricked into joining a reality show where the goal is to win a large amount of money. But there is a catch. To win, you have to lie, cheat, and trick the other players. She doesn’t know how to play that kind of game, so she teams up with a former con artist who helps her stay in the competition. Each round has simple rules, but the pressure builds as players turn on each other to stay ahead.
If you liked Squid Game for its games and the way people had to choose between survival and doing the right thing, Liar Game has the same feeling. You will see how money can bring out the worst in people and how hard it is to stay honest when the rules reward you for being cruel. The main character wants to stay good in a system that is designed to break people. Liar Game is slower and quieter than Squid Game, but the tension and moral questions are just as real.
9) The 8 Show (2024)
The 8 Show is about eight strangers who agree to take part in what seems like a basic social experiment. They are locked inside a tall building and told they will earn money for every minute they stay. At first, the task feels simple. But as time goes on, the rules change. To earn real money, the contestants must argue, cause harm, or put themselves through emotional stress. The show rewards pain, conflict, and suffering. What starts off calm turns into something cruel, all for the sake of keeping the viewers entertained.
If you liked Squid Game for how it showed people trapped in a system that used them for profit, The 8 Show will feel very familiar. This show takes everyday people and places them in a controlled space where their pain is used for someone else’s gain. The characters are pushed to their limits by the pressure to earn money and be watched at all times. Just like in Squid Game, the ones with power stay hidden while others are forced to suffer for survival. The 8 Show takes a modern look at how people are treated when they have nothing to offer except their pain, and it asks the same hard questions about greed, control, and what it means to be human in a system that wants you to fall apart.
10) Duty After School (2023)
Duty After School takes place in a world where strange alien creatures begin attacking Earth without warning. In response, the South Korean government pulls high school students from their classrooms, hands them weapons, and trains them for combat. As the stakes get higher, the students face death and the painful truth that they are being used as disposable tools in a war they never asked for.
The show looks at how power can take away choice, and how rules are often used to control rather than protect. The students must decide whether to follow orders or protect each other, even when both choices come with a cost. Like Squid Game, this drama asks what it means to survive in a world that does not value your life. But here, the story is told through teenagers who never got the chance to grow up before being sent to fight.
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Image courtesy of Marvel Studios.
