You’d think there might be some kind of complicated reason as to why a successful show like Squid Game is only getting one season, but it’s actually quite simple.

When Squid Game proved to be such a massive hit back in 2021, it was pretty obvious that Netflix would want to capitalise on that somehow, particularly with its cliffhanger of an ending. Season 2 is finally arriving this December, three years after the first one arrived, with Netflix also confirming that the show will end in 2025 with a third and final season. Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming second season, but interestingly he also shared his reasoning behind only making three seasons in total.

“When I was thinking about the idea for the ending of season three, I think it sort of naturally came to me that this was the finale,” Hwang said. “I believed that with that story, I was able to tell everything that I wanted to tell through the story of Squid Game and also in the perspective of Gi-hun as a character, and I thought that we don’t need any further stories from here.” That doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Squid Game, as a David Fincher-led American remake is supposedly on the way, but at least the original show will be ending on its own terms.

It’s also worth noting that Hwang didn’t actually envision three seasons originally, explaining, “I felt a certain amount of pressure because I knew that there was a huge amount of anticipation out there, and honestly when I was creating season one I didn’t plan in any detail that there would be a second season. However, I did have something in mind that if there were to ever be a second season, I had this idea of what story I would tell; I thought it would be the story of Gi-hun turning away from where he was at the end of season one and going back into the games in order to put a stop to the game.”

Squid Game is out December 26 on Netflix.