Squid Game Season 3 doesn’t just continue the series’ grim tradition—it ends with one of its bleakest outcomes. Like its predecessors, this season revolves around impossible choices, cruel games, and the chilling question that always lingers: Who makes it out alive?
The answer, at the end of Squid Game Season 3, says everything about what Squid Game has always been about. Nearly every main character, including returning lead Gi-hun (Player 456), dies.
The sole survivor? Jun-hee’s newborn baby. Yes, a child becomes the last one standing in a game designed to destroy people. The message hits hard—survival comes with the steepest price, and sometimes, the winner didn't even know they were playing.
Gi-hun’s final act: The return of Player 456
Gi-hun walks back into the arena in Squid Game Season 3, carrying all the weight of his past. This time, he's not naive. He knows how the game works, and more importantly, he knows what it destroys. He tries to protect those around him, but when it comes to the final round, it’s clear he’s not playing to win—he’s playing to save someone else.
In the last game, Gi-hun sacrifices himself to ensure Jun-hee’s baby survives. He doesn’t hesitate. His final moments underline the theme echoed through the show: the only real victory is refusing to become like the people running the game. His death is brutal, but it’s also a choice—to protect innocence, even if it costs him everything.
Jun-hee: A mother in the game
Jun-hee (Player 222) makes it farther than most. But her journey is unlike anything Squid Game has shown before because she gives birth during the competition. She tries to push forward with a severely injured ankle, but when it becomes clear she won’t make it, she makes her own heartbreaking decision. She ends her life so her baby might live.
It’s not dramatized. It’s not romanticized. It’s a mother trying to give her child a chance, even in the most inhumane situation. Her final moments are raw. She trusts Gi-hun with her child, and that choice changes everything.
Deaths that defined Squid Game Season 3
Squid Game Season 3 is brutal, even by Squid Game standards. The deaths come fast, and they hurt.
Geum-ja (Player 149) takes her own life after blaming herself for her son’s death in an earlier round. Her guilt swallows her.
Nam-gyu (Player 124) loses control during the high-stakes jump rope game after a drug-fueled breakdown. He doesn’t survive the round.
Captain Park, a figure from inside the system, is killed by Jun-ho’s crew after it’s revealed he was secretly working for the game organizers. It’s part of a deeper subplot about the people behind the scenes, but it’s his death that finally breaks part of the cycle from within.
By the time the last few rounds roll in, most contestants are gone. The final game sees just three players left: Gi-hun, Myung-gi (Player 333), and Jun-hee’s baby.
Myung-gi dies trying to betray Gi-hun. It’s desperate and ugly. His death leaves Gi-hun and the child, and Gi-hun does what only someone like him would—he gives the child the win.
The child who survived the game
It sounds absurd—a newborn winning Squid Game. But that’s exactly what happens. Jun-hee’s baby becomes the last living player, technically the winner of the entire contest. It happens because of Gi-hun’s final sacrifice but also because of something else: the VIPs.
Yes, the VIPs return. And their influence changes everything. According to the show, they’re the ones who allow the child to stay in the game after Jun-hee dies. It’s a decision that’s part cruelty, part curiosity. They want to see what happens next. They always do.
The baby’s “win” is as hollow as any other. It’s survival, not victory. There’s no prize, no celebration, just the haunting silence of everyone else being gone.
What does this ending mean?
By the time the final credits roll, the picture is clear: Squid Game Season 3 doesn’t pull its punches. It kills off almost every character we’ve followed. It ends with a child alone in a world built on cruelty. And yet, it’s the most fitting ending the show could offer.
Gi-hun returns only to make sure someone else makes it out. Jun-hee gives everything for her baby. And the game, as always, proves that even in victory, you lose something.
The show has never been about winning—it’s about what people are forced to do just to survive. And Squid Game Season 3 drives that home, one death at a time.
Watch Squid Game Season 3 on Netflix now.