Squid Game season 2 brings back Chae Kyoung-sun’s mind-bending production design with pink motels, purple stairwells, and twisted games.
From towering bunk beds and eerie stairwells to that unforgettable doll with glowing eyes, the visual style of Squid Game’s first season left a permanent mark on pop culture. Now, as the series returns for its highly anticipated second season, production designer Chae Kyoung-sun is back — and her imaginative, psychologically loaded sets are bolder, brighter, and even more immersive than before.
In Season 2, Squid Game’s protagonist Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae) returns, not as a player looking for money but as a man haunted by trauma and driven by revenge. As Chae explains, Gi-hun’s mental state is mirrored in his physical surroundings. “I thought the dominant color in his head would be pink, the color that would haunt him,” she says. Enter The Pink Motel, Gi-hun’s new base of operations. Inside, sparse furnishings and scattered monitors signal his obsession with tracking the game’s creators. Mirrors throughout the space create a panopticon effect — suggesting that while Gi-hun surveils, he is also being watched.
When Gi-hun reenters the deadly games, he is met with a familiar sight: the multicolored stairways and dormitories that stunned viewers in Season 1. Chae rebuilt these sets to be even more ambitious this time, increasing the size by 1.5 times and designing them like Lego modules, capable of expansion and transformation. The famous Escher-like pink and green stairwells are joined by new hues and layers, adding complexity as the storyline escalates.
As rebellion brews inside the game’s structure, the color scheme evolves. What was once pink slowly turns into regal purple, symbolizing proximity to power. “Purple was an easy decision,” Chae notes. “It’s historically linked to nobility, and it’s a color created from red and blue, two opposites.” This thematic use of color guides viewers deeper into the show’s hierarchy and conflict.
New features in the dormitory reflect the game’s updated rules, including a vote after each game to decide whether to continue. A central line dividing the floor, marked with an X and an O, visually reinforces themes of division and choice. “There’s so much division in life,” Chae says. “I maximized that visually.”
When it’s time to play the first game — the iconic “Red Light, Green Light” — Chae keeps the giant doll but introduces new, more elaborate games. In the six-legged pentathlon, players form five-person teams tied together to race through mini-games. Drawing from her memories of 1970s and ‘80s Korean elementary school sports days, Chae adds a nostalgic flair with a sand-covered 17,791-square-foot arena and a motto above the hall that reads, “Be strong, steadfast, and brave.”
One of the most visually striking new games is “Mingle”, a frantic team-forming challenge built practically with little CGI. Set on a spinning orange platform surrounded by carousel horses, pink bows, and Cray-Pas-colored doors, the room captures a surreal, childhood-inspired chaos. “I wanted to give the sense of horses who have lost their sense of direction,” Chae says — a metaphor for the desperate, disoriented players scrambling for survival.
Every corner of Chae’s designs is rich with symbolism, echoing the internal struggles of the characters while keeping viewers visually enthralled. With Season 2, she continues to turn childhood games into twisted spectacles — and sets that are as unsettling as they are unforgettable.
