Shows Like Squid Game: 10 Deadly-Game and Survival Thrillers to Watch Next

Shows like Squid Game work because they weaponize a simple idea: desperate people, a game with clear rules, and stakes that cannot be undone. The series below capture that same mix of tension, moral pressure and bingeable twists, whether the game is literal, the world itself is the trap, or survival is the only prize. Start with Alice in Borderland for the closest match — another story of players fighting through deadly games in an empty city — and keep this list handy for your next marathon.

10 Deadly-Game and Survival Thrillers to Watch Next

1. Squid Game (2021) — The show that started it all: 456 debt-ridden contestants play children’s games for a fortune, and losing means death. Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Netflix phenomenon works because the games are simple, the characters are desperate, and every round raises the moral cost of winning.
2. Alice in Borderland — Arisu and his friends wake up in an empty Tokyo where they must win deadly games, graded by suit and difficulty, to earn visas that keep them alive. It is faster, flashier and more puzzle-driven than Squid Game, and its second season goes gloriously big.
3. All of Us Are Dead — A zombie outbreak traps students inside their high school, and survival becomes a series of impossible choices about who to save and who to leave behind. The school setting makes the horror personal: every hallway holds someone you know.
4. From (2022) — A town nobody can leave, roads that loop back, and creatures that come out at night. From is less about games than about a community under siege, but the dread, the rules and the mysteries hit the same nerve as Squid Game’s best episodes.
5. The Walking Dead (2010) — Eleven seasons of survivors learning that the living are more dangerous than the dead. Rick Grimes’s group faces rival communities, warlords and impossible moral math — the long-form version of Squid Game’s survival question.
6. The Last of Us (2023) — Joel and Ellie cross a fungus-ravaged America where infected Clickers are only one danger among many. It is quieter and more emotional than Squid Game, but it shares the same core: what will you do to keep one person alive?
7. Fallout (2024) — Two hundred years after nuclear war, vault dweller Lucy steps into a wasteland of factions, monsters and Vault-Tec conspiracies. The tone is wilder and funnier than Squid Game, but the survival stakes and the mystery-box plotting are just as addictive.
8. The Hunger Games — The template for the whole genre: teenagers from twelve districts fight to the death on live television while the Capitol watches. Katniss Everdeen’s rebellion arc gives the deadly-game premise its most iconic hero.
9. Battle Royale — The 2000 Japanese film that started it all: a class of schoolchildren stranded on an island, given weapons, and told only one may leave. Brutal, darkly funny and still shocking a quarter-century later.
10. 3% — In a future Brazil, the poor compete in a brutal selection process for a place in the offshore paradise, and only three percent make it. The trials, the betrayals and the class anger make it a natural next watch for Squid Game fans.

What Makes a Deadly-Game Story Work

The best entries here share a ruthless clarity. The rules are explained quickly, the stakes are absolute, and the audience always knows exactly what a character stands to lose. That clarity is what makes the moral dilemmas land: when a player helps a rival, betrays a friend or sacrifices themselves, you understand the price in full.

They also understand that the game is never really the point. Squid Game is about debt and dignity; Alice in Borderland is about finding a reason to live; All of Us Are Dead is about growing up under impossible pressure. The game is just the machine that forces those truths out into the open.

Where to Start Tonight

If you want the closest possible match, Alice in Borderland is the obvious first pick — same structure, same adrenaline, a different flavor of puzzle. If you want horror, All of Us Are Dead or From will keep you up late. If you want a long journey, The Walking Dead or The Last of Us offer entire worlds to get lost in. And if you want the genre’s roots, Battle Royale is the essential history lesson.

For the full story behind the closest match on this list, see the complete Alice in Borderland page.