Netflix estimates that Squid Game will create almost $900 million in value for the company, which is nearly 40 times the amount the show cost to produce.

According to an internal Netflix document seen by Bloomberg, the South Korean survival drama has generated $891.1 million in "impact value," which is a metric the company uses to assess the performance from individual shows, including the likes of Bridgerton which was the streaming service's most-watched series launch before Squid Game knocked it off its perch.

The confidential document also reportedly revealed that the nine-episode thriller, which hit Netflix on September 17, cost just $21.3 million to produce, making it approximately $2.4 million per episode, which is considerably more cost-efficent than some of Netflix's other major shows such as Stranger Things and The Crown.

In addition, the report shared some updated data in regards to Squid Game's total viewer figure, with it now being reported that about 132 million people watched at least two minutes of the show in its first 23 days on the platform. It was previously announced that the dystopian series had reached 111 million people, making it the biggest ever launch for Netflix.

Despite the show's seemingly overnight success, Squid Game was in development for 10 years as the director tried and failed to get the story made for the screen. And when Netflix finally went ahead and produced the show, director Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed the intensity of the shoot caused him to lose six teeth to stress.

The magnitude of production and the extremity of the experience may have taken its toll on Hwang, but it hasn't totally discouraged him from thinking about a second season. He has already indicated that, should it be greenlit, Squid Game's sophomore season might not be about the contestants as he would like to further explore the role of the Korean police.

IGN awarded Squid Game a 9 out of 10, calling it "one of the most exciting series to hit Netflix in some time." We praised the way it unravels the story to deliver "a white-knuckle thriller, drama, and episodic psychological breakdown with a sickly pastel veneer," which is "equal parts gut-wrenching and squirm-inducing" for both the players and the audience.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Compulsion Games, the studio behind We Happy Few, says that it has doubled in size for its newest project, which will be a third-person narrative-driven single-player game.

During an interview with Xbox Squad (as translated by VGC), Compulsion Games PR and Community Developer Naila Hadjas talked further about the studio's recent expansion and its plans for the future, saying: “I think we gave ourselves a little time to learn. It’s our first game with Microsoft and we’re learning a lot."

Microsoft announced back at E3 2018 that it had bought Compulsion Games as part of a mass acquisition that included the likes of Forza Horizon developer Playground Games, State of Decay's Undead Labs, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice developer Ninja Theory. As a result, the new game will almost certainly be exclusive to Xbox and PC, and released at launch on Game Pass.

“We have doubled the workforce and we are adapting to it,” Hadjas continues. “The goal is to expand our zany universe, to continue to make our mark in video games as a studio that likes to make unique games, in little-used settings. For now, that’s our goal. Pursue our ‘legacy’, our heritage, while remaining true to ourselves.”

Despite its current lack of details or official title, the upcoming game from Compulsion is reported to have gone into production only a few months after the release of We Happy Few, which initially entered early access in 2016 before gaining a full release two years later. According to Hadjas, the new game is currently in "full development", although the PR and Community Developer did also note that she has "no idea" when fans will get to see it.

Unlike We Happy Few, the studio believes that its new project is unlikely to require an early access period prior to its full launch. “With our new game, a narrative, third person, story game, I don’t think we need any feedback," says Hardjas. "It’s not like a roguelike where you replay it multiple times and you need data to make sure the experience is fun."

While We Happy Few does have a traditional story, Hadjas notes that this wasn't the case in the beginning and that its inclusion only came after fans fell in love with the game's world and its characters. In contrast, Hadjas says that the next game "is a story" and that the team knows where it is going from the beginning. Currently, Compulsion Games' upcoming project does not yet have a release date.

For more from the developer, make sure to check out our review of We Happy Few where we awarded the game a 7.3/10.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Below is a spoiler-free review of Locke & Key Season 2, which debuts on Netflix on Oct. 22.

When Netflix finally released the first season of Locke & Key after nearly a decade of failed adaptations, it felt like a bittersweet victory. Yes, the characters were perfectly cast and Keyhouse was a character unto itself, but the tone was so different that it lost some of the charm and excitement of the original — even if some of the changes to the story hinted at a better Season 2. When the new season runs with those changes, it is a compelling, exciting, and at times even poignant show about memories and the fears of growing up, with an exquisitely despicable villain and some great set pieces. But when it remembers to go back to the source material, the season ends up feeling rushed and undercooked, with yet another bittersweet installment that has some great ideas and a not-so-great execution.

Picking up three months after the end of the previous season, evil has won, and they are not alone. The demon Dodge managed to trick the Locke family into thinking they had sent them back to the hell they came from, but instead took the form of their friend Gabe (Griffin Gluck), who now has a henchwoman in Eden (Hallea Jones), who got infected by a demon at the end of the season, unbeknownst to the Lockes. Thinking they are free from evil demons, Tyler (Connor Jessup), Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) now spend most of the season dealing with a different problem — growing up.

If the first season changed the phantasmagorical and horrific tone of the comic in favor of Harry Potter-like whimsy, then this one trades Hogwarts for Narnia, as the first season focused on the terrifying realization that, eventually, you will grow up and forget about the magic in the world, and also the special keys around Keyhouse. The moment when an adult's brain is rewired to ignore the magic around them is treated as a death scene in a slasher film, with sound design that cues you in like the theme music for a horror villain, and extreme close-ups that show the terror on the characters' faces as they get reprogrammed against their will.

No matter how powerful the keys are, there is no beating the passing of time, and Locke & Key finds plenty of emotional gravitas to explore in the characters' desperation to stop this from happening. It's hard not to see Tyler’s efforts to make sure Jackie experiences as much magic as possible before she turns 18 as an allegory for dementia and the desperation that comes with knowing a loved one’s mind will slowly slip away. Likewise, Duncan (Aaron Ashmore) gets a bigger role, with a heartbreaking story about what he lost when his memories were stolen from him as a kid, resulting in the best subplot of the season.

But the horror doesn't stop at the worries of becoming older. The season as a whole feels darker, scarier, and more dangerous. A trip to a character's head becomes something out of Nightmare on Elm Street, giant spiders crawl up on the Lockes, and people die gruesome deaths (while still not graphic enough that young viewers can't watch the show). In many ways, this is the Order of the Phoenix of Locke & Key, with the story being notably darker, characters being oblivious as to why, and evil building an army of its own. A big reason why this works is that the show finally lets Dodge be as terrifyingly evil as possible, without leaning into absurdist humor. Instead, it is Eden who becomes the butt of the joke as a villain, allowing Dodge to become as threatening as his comics counterpart. Griffin Gluck does a terrific job connecting to Laysla De Oliveira's performance as the female Dodge last season while making the evil entity his own, walking a fine line between an over-the-top Disney villain and a sadistic psychopath while making it look effortless.

Eden is far from the only change to the source material, and when Locke & Key frees itself from having to follow the story by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez beat by beat, it introduces some fascinating and entertaining concepts that make the show worth watching, whether you're a hardcore fan or a casual viewer. This season greatly expands on the origin of the keys themselves in ways only hinted at in the comic, as well as how they are made and who can make them. These changes work to make the world of the show more fleshed out and detailed, as the season uses more frequent flashbacks to explore the past of Matheson and of Keyhouse, and its importance not only to the present, but to the future of the series.

Arguably the most surprising addition to the show last season was the introduction to the ghost of Benjamin Locke, a character that opened the door for an adaptation that could encompass more than just the story of Dodge, and this season continues that with the introduction of the Small World Key. The third episode, which features that key, is a highlight of the season, with a great set piece, impressive visual effects, and a fantastic use of Keyhouse itself as a character, with its many rooms and hallways given enough detail and care that you can imagine the centuries worth of stories in every texture.

Unfortunately, Locke & Key continues to suffer from wanting to cram in too many things at once. There's the family drama, Dodge’s quest for evil, and the attempts to avoid growing old and forgetting about magic, but also The CW-style high school drama and a ton of flashbacks that end up putting us ahead of the characters constantly, making them seem dumb for it. As if there weren't enough characters already, this season also introduces a new family with a connection to the town, but the season doesn't really know what to do with most of these characters. In his review for the Alpha #1 issue of the comic, Joshua Yehl wrote, "everyone has been given an endearing quality, an all-too-human flaw, and a unique spark that makes them feel more like a real person than a comic book character," but the show seems to forget that, and relies on the viewer's connection to the comic to fill in the gaps in the characterization. This results in side characters that were changed or introduced in the show feeling underdeveloped, like Jackie or even Nina, whose momentum from her improved story in the first season comes to a complete halt in this one.

While the first half of the season focuses on characters and worldbuilding, slowly unveiling its main goal while letting us enjoy the ride, the second half rushes to get to the end. Plot points are quickly resolved and thrown away in order to rush to the next one without giving us a moment to take in the emotions or even the huge ramifications of some of the choices, resulting in an anticlimactic ending that undersells the supposed stakes at hand. In the end, it feels similar to the way Game of Thrones handled its last season, with a rush to the finish line as if it stopped caring about the story, focused only on what comes next, even if the beginning was strong and full of possibilities. If Season 2 of Locke & Key is drawing inspiration from The Chronicles of Narnia movies, then the ending hints at a Voyage of the Dawn Trader-like Season 3.

Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida says that discussions between Square Enix and Microsoft to bring the game to Xbox are 'positive', but still ongoing.

In an interview with Easy Allies, Yoshida talked further about the current status of an Xbox version of Final Fantasy 14. While the director was hesitant to confirm any new details surrounding the game, he did point out that talks between Square Enix and Microsoft have taken a positive turn.

"So I feel bad for saying the same thing every time," said Yoshida when asked if there was any news on an Xbox version of FF14. "But we are still in discussions with Microsoft and I feel like our conversations are going in a positive tone. I don't want to say that we do not have an Xbox version but I'm hoping that the timing will be very soon that I'll have some kind of update to the players.

"I'm sure that there's a lot of things that people want to ask about on the subject and there's a lot of things that I would love to share but I'm afraid I'm unable to divulge on those details."

Despite its current lack of an Xbox port, the game has performed exceedingly well across PC and PlayStation consoles. Following a soft reboot with Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and a number of subsequent expansions, the MMORPG has seen growing popularity over the past few years. This year alone, the game has seemed as popular as ever, with speculation even suggesting that Square Enix may have temporarily halted digital sales for the game due to briefly over-congested servers.

During a hands-on preview event for the game's upcoming Endwalker expansion, Yoshida spoke further about the popularity of FF14. During the event, the director confirmed that the MMORPG has become the most profitable game in the Final Fantasy series to date and that it had recently surpassed 24 million players worldwide.

Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker is set to launch on November 23. As well as featuring hours and hours of new story content, the expansion will also include several new areas and two new job classes. IGN was recently given the opportunity to try out some of the various new features coming to Endwalker. To see what we thought, make sure to check out this article detailing everything we learned from the Final Fantasy 14: Enwalker preview.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

A woman in Canada was allegedly woken by a meteorite crashing through her roof and landing on her bed while she was asleep.

According to The New York Times, 66-year-old Ruth Hamilton was sound asleep in her home in British Columbia when she was abruptly woken by something she later discovered to be out of this world, as a "rock" came plummeting through her roof and landed directly between the two pillows on her bed, where she had been led at the time of the "explosion."

Fortunately, Hamilton didn't appear to sustain any injuries from the incident, though the report notes that her face was left covered in "drywall debris" after the 2.8-pound rock hurtled through her roof and created a hole in the ceiling on the night of October 3. She immediately called emergenecy services and the police subsequently arrived at her home.

Hamilton says the officer on duty initially suspected the stray rock to have come from a construction site on a nearby highway, but they soon discovered "the workers had not done any blasting that night." However, Professor Peter Brown from the University of Western Ontario later confirmed that the charcoal gray rock was a meteorite "from an asteroid."

University of Calgary researchers shared reports from other local residents who claimed to have "heard two loud booms and seen a fireball streaking across the sky." According to Professor Brown, these people likely witnessed the onset of a very rare event as the odds of a meteorite making such an intrusion in someone's home is about one in 100 billion.

While it's a known fact that meteoroids hurl towards Earth every single day, only some of them break through the atmosphere and stick a landing. On the occasions that they do hit the ground (or someone's bed), scientists are presented with an unusual opportunity to study the space rocks and learn more about them based on their size, shape, mass, and more.

For instance, Scientists recently calculated that there is about a one in 1750 chance of the potentially hazardous Bennu asteroid hitting Earth between 2021 and 2300, while another group of researchers examined an asteroid that was discovered in an Algerian desert last year and determined it was actually a piece of an ancient planet older than Earth itself.

For even more about asteroids, find out why the metallic asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter has an estimated worth of $10,000 quadrillion, learn more about how a floating asteroid could play host to rotating habitats for humans to potentially colonize, and then take a closer look at an asteroid sample originating from a near-Earth object named Ryugu.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA