The countdown begins: ‘Squid Game’ season 3 premiere date revealed

(Reuters): The popular South Korean drama "Squid Game" will return to Netflix on June 27 for a third and final season, the streaming platform announced during its "Next on Netflix" event on Thursday.

The event also featured a short clip from the upcoming season, which reveals yet another tension-filled scene from within the games.

The survival thriller action series turned into a global sensation in 2021, bolstering Netflix's subscription numbers and becoming the streaming service's most-watched original series in its first month.

Netflix reported that 142 million households had watched the dark drama about people who compete in a deadly competition to erase financial debt.

The return of "Squid Game," together with high-profile live events such as the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match and two National Football League games on Christmas Day, helped Netflix add a record 19 million subscribers in its fourth quarter, to bring its total global subscriber base to nearly 302 million.

The third season will be the last installment of the series, which was developed for television by Korean writer and producer Hwang Dong-hyuk. The story will once again follow Lee Jung-jae as the protagonist Seong Gi-hun, who is determined to stop the dystopian games.

"Squid Game" is one of a trio of popular series returning to Netflix this year. The supernatural drama "Stranger Things" returns for a fifth and final installment, and the Addams Family-inspired series, "Wednesday," is back for its second season.