It is Netflix’s most-watched show ever and now the streaming giant hopes a new video game based on the dystopian hit ‘Squid Game’ will break records too.

Squid Game: Unleashed, released today, marks Netflix’s biggest foray into the world of online gaming and allows up to 32 players to square off in competitions based around fan favorites like Red Light, Green Light.

Just like the hit show - which returns for its second season on December 26 - the video game takes classic children’s games and puts a gory spin on them with the tag line: ‘You win some, you die some.'

Bill Jackson, Creative Director at Boss Fight, Netflix’s games studio, said: ‘Fans have been requesting a game since Squid Game first became a global phenomenon back in 2021. 

'The fandom around the show is so passionate and everyone wants to know how they’d perform in the games if they had a chance to play themselves.’

While Netflix already dominates global TV streaming the company is now setting its sights on taking a bite out of the $455 billion global gaming market.

And while there have been several successful TV shows spawned by popular games - like The Last of Us and Fallout - this is the first time a game has been produced in tandem with a TV show.

The first season of Squid Game - a South Korean series about contestants who fight to the death for a cash prize - has been viewed by 330 million people for a total of over 2.8 billion viewing hours.

A Netflix source said: ‘This is the first time a game has been developed hand-in-hand with a show. The idea is to keep audiences within the Netflix ecosystem instead of having to send them different places to play and watch. 

‘The producers and writers of the show worked directly with the game developers as the show was being created and filmed.

‘The game allows fans to delve deeper into the Squid Game universe. As new episodes come out, the games featured in the show will also become available on the video game.

‘Fans can watch the show and then go to the game where their avatar can enter the same twisted universe, play identical games and die the same horrible deaths as the characters in the show.’

Netflix is so determined to make the video game a hit it has made the game available to everyone for free - even if you don’t subscribe to the streaming giant.

Squid Game, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, premiered in 2021 and spawned global interest in everything associated with the show.

Vans slip-on sneakers, worn by the lead character, saw sales shoot up 8,000 per cent.