Beast Games is a 2024 reality competitiontelevision series created by Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson, Tyler Conklin, Sean Klitzner, and Mack Hopkins. Hosted by Donaldson, Beast Games follows 1,000 contestants—the largest cast for a reality show—as they compete for the prize of $5 million, which is advertised as one of the largest single prizes in reality television history.[1]
Inspired by the viral Netflix show Squid Game and Donaldson's viral video "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!",[2][3][4][5] the first two episodes of Beast Games were released on Amazon Prime Video on December 19, 2024, and the full series will consist of ten episodes that will be released weekly on Thursdays. On the same day, Jimmy Donaldson also released the tryout for the game show on his YouTube channel titled "2,000 People Fight for $5,000,000" where he cuts the number of people participating from 2,000 to 1,000 in a series of challenges. On 25 January 2025, MrBeast uploaded a video titled Each Minute One Person is Eliminated, which follows 20 people previously eliminated from the Beast Games show participate to once again to compete for $500,000 later reduced to $410,000.
Several contestants alleged that they were mistreated during production, resulting in a lawsuit against Donaldson's company and several others. While the show was received poorly by critics, it became one of Amazon Prime Video's most viewed shows.
The episode begins with MrBeast announcing the grand prize of $5,000,000, and introduces the 1,000 contestants. He begins by offering $1,000,000, split by the amount of people who take that offer. In the end, people walk away with $19,000 in hand. In the first game, MrBeast gives the contestants 10 minutes to let one person eliminate themselves, so that the same row with excluding person moves on. The game ends with 3 rows being fully eliminated. In the second game, MrBeast asks contestants to stack blocks with varying widths, on top of a red starting block, within 10 minutes. If they don't stack the blocks in time, or a stack falls down, they are eliminated. By the end, 605 players remain. The final game is of bribes. MrBeast offers contestants increasing amounts of money, and if they take it, they walk out with the money, eliminating their whole row, but if they don't take the offer, they stay in the game. The prize money reaches up to $1,000,000, and 493 players move on to Beast City, introduced in Episode 2.
2
"500 People Trapped In My City"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
December 19, 2024 (2024-12-19)
493 players settle in the Beast City and relax for 24 hours. The players then line up to receive 4 tokens, with hints on them, corresponding to the 4 floors they may go to to participate for the next game, and MrBeast allows them to trade tokens. The first game happens on the 4th floor, where selected players split up into 2 teams, on 2 sides of the tower. MrBeast's crew drop balls onto the celling, which has periodic holes. The balls may drop from any of these holes, and if any balls hit the floor, that team iss eliminated. The team on the left side is eliminated. The players who have a token of 2 go up to the second floor, and separate into 2 teams. The objective is to have the least amount of people on one side, so that side moves on, and the leaving players are eliminated. MrBeast adds a telephone in both areas to make the game more interesting. In the end, the right-sided team moves on. The players with a 3 token, split into 2 teams on the third floor. A giant red cup is added in the centre, and each player is given a ball to throw. Each successful throw earns the team a point. In the middle of the game, MrBeast adds a gold cup, and with each successful throw here, the thrower earns $250,000, but no points for the team. In the end, the team on the left won. Players with a token of one went to the first floor, split in 2 teams, and participated in a simple quiz game. Players of each team, split further into teams, and would come down to battle with the other team's teams for points. The team with the most points would move on. In the end, the team on the left would move on. The remaining players split in 4 teams, with team captains Harrison, Deano, Twana, and Jeremy. These captains were given increasing bribes up to $1,000,000, and if they accepted this, they would walk out with the money, and the whole team.
3
"The Solitary Experiment"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
December 26, 2024 (2024-12-26)
Nobody accepted the bribes, and all remaining players moved on. The contestants are asked to group into 3 teams for a potato sack race. One player from the team competes in the race, and the winning team wins a special house gaining them immunity for the upcoming challenge. In this game, the teams are given their own huts, with handcuffs on the walls, and a telephone to have anything delivered to their room. MrBeast announces that all teams have 5 hours to choose one person who is handcuffed to the wall, thereby being eliminated, which helps the other team members qualify for the next game, and if nobody is chosen by the end of 5 hours, then all members are eliminated. The timer begins, and contestants start playing games and asking for ridiculous things over the telephone. By the end of the 5 hours, 94 people are eliminated. The next day, MrBeast brings out a golden gift box, and the first person to touch it wins whatever is inside. The winner is awarded a ticket to Beast Island, and 5 others to give to people, filling out 6 seats, and 1 of the 10 helicopters taking people to Beast Island. MrBeast announces about hiding a ticket somewhere in the city, and people run to find it.
4
"The Golden Ticket"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
January 2, 2025 (2025-01-02)
This episode continues on from Episode 3, and the contestants are searching the city for a ticket. One contestant finds a ticket under a ping-pong table, and MrBeast gives him 5 other tickets to choose more people who will come up on the helicopter. He does so, and 7 helicopters are left. In the next game, MrBeast gives all the contestants 1 ball to hold in their hands. They are blindfolded, and given 10 minutes. The 6 contestants who drop their ball, closest to the timer hitting 0, move on, and anybody holding a ball after the timer, is eliminated. Then, MrBeast gives the remaining players 1 coin. The objective of the game is to collect as many coins from the other players as possible, and the person with the most coins wins a ticket to the island, and 5 other tickets to pass to people. In the next game, MrBeast asks teams to be made, and gives each front-team player a glass ball on a pedestal. Their objective is to make the ball reach the end of the line without dropping and breaking it, thus resulting in elimination. 3 teams move on to the island. In the next game, contestants are told to wear blindfolds and to stand around the landing pad where the helicopter landed. With 60 seconds on the clock, players must decide whether to step forward into the inner circle. If more than one person steps in, then everyone within that inner circle is eliminated. However, if only one person steps forward, they receive a ticket to Beast Island and choose five people to accompany them. Then, MrBeast gives people a chance to win $250,000 by climbing up one tower, or continuing to participate. 13 people walk away after this, splitting the money between themselves. The players on the other tower throw balls towards a golden briefcase, and the one who has a closer throw wins a ticket and five other tickets to hand out to people. MrBeast has everyone break off into groups of six and stand on platforms. MrBeast gives everyone a coin. The objective is for one person on each platform to get the coins from everyone else, meaning only one person per platform can make it to Beast Island. Everyone remaining is sent home.
5
"Fight to Win a Private Island"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
January 9, 2025 (2025-01-09)
The episode mainly continues the plot following the 9 players who chose to go to the private island. In the first game, players had to hide from navy seals who were coming to hunt them down. The first player to be caught would be eliminated. The next game featured coconuts that each player had to throw down a path. They would aim to throw as far as possible, but if their coconut crossed the red line then it would fall down a slope and they would be eliminated. The 2 players who either threw their coconut over the line first or threw it the shortest were eliminated. After that, a boat with all the players who chose to stay in the main island appeared. They were faced with the decision to vote a player within the 6 people on the private island, and the player with the most votes would be eliminated. However, after counting the votes, Jimmy offered the players on the island a choice to leave the private island and join the main island if they thought that they'd receive the most votes. In the end, nobody took the offer. In the next game, players would elect a captain. The captain would then place 1 X and 4 O's in boxes labeled from 1-5. They would then call players in a chosen order and could tell players which box to pick, which the player could then choose to follow or not to follow. After the 4 boxes were picked from the other players, the captain would then have to take the remaining box. The player who picked the box with the X would be eliminated (which also applies to the captain.) Following that, the remaining 4 players were taken to a pirate ship with real cannons. Jimmy once again gave the players another offer to cash out and eliminate themselves for $450,000 in gold, a quarter of the private island's value. The offer would be given in the order of the boxes that the players picked last game. The first player immediately took the offer, rendering the other players unable to take it. In the final game, players were given a 3 boards each displaying a number: 1, 3 and 5. Players would pick a board and would advance by the amount of spaces shown on that board. However, if 2 or more players picked the same board, they would be unable to advance. In the end, the player who won would be able to pick the other finalist to compete against in the game to determine who would win the private island.
6
"Physical, Mental, Chance...Your Choice"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
January 16, 2025 (2025-01-16)
Continuing from the previous episode, the two remaining island competitors compete in one last game for the rights to the island. Each contestant is given two briefcases; one contains a deed to the island, while the other contains an X. The contestants swapped cases to allow one to have both deeds, thus winning the game, the island, and the right to stay in the main competition, while the other contestant is eliminated. Back at Beast City, the remaining 52 competitors are given a choice between 3 games; a physical game, a mental game, and a chance game. 19 contestants chose the mental game, a trivia competition where the contestants were ranked based on their intelligence, giving the highest ranked players the right to choose their opponents. 10 contestants were eliminated in the mental game. 16 contestants chose to play the chance game, in which a number of contestants were chosen to be eliminated through randomly assigned trapdoors. 12 contestants were eliminated in the chance game. The remaining 17 contestants chose the physical games, in which two teams of 8 would compete in games that would test their strength, speed, and stamina. As the games required an even number of players among both teams, the last player who wasn't picked by either team captain would be eliminated. The pink team won the first physical game, where both teams pushed a monster truck in hopes of getting theirs to the finish line first before the other team. The orange team would win the second game, a series of sprints to grab flags on a football field; the flag would be placed further on the field with each round. For the third and final physical game, both teams were tasked to pick one contestant each for a dead hang challenge; whoever let go and fell first would be eliminated, as such eliminating their entire team. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, as the two selected contestants hang high above the city.
7
"The Elimination Train"
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
January 23, 2025 (2025-01-23)
8
TBA
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
January 30, 2025 (2025-01-30)
9
TBA
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
February 6, 2025 (2025-02-06)
10
TBA
Tyler Conklin and Kate Douglas-Walker
Jimmy Donaldson
February 13, 2025 (2025-02-13)
Production
Development
On March 18, 2024, Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast, announced that he had secured a $100 million deal with Amazon MGM Studios to produce a reality television series titled Beast Games for Prime Video.[6] The series was created by Donaldson, Tyler Conklin, Sean Klitzner, and Mack Hopkins.[7] Applications for the show opened on May 5, 2024.[8][9][non-primary source needed] Donaldson serves as the host and executive producer. The budget for Beast Games is reported to be over $100 million.[10]
Filming began with the first round, which was shot through July 18–22, 2024, inside of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, with a total of 2,000 contestants attending. This round is released on YouTube.[11] The second round that was featured in the first four episodes of the TV series was filmed with the remaining 1,000 contestants at Downsview Park Studios in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in August of that year.[2][12]
Contestants complained that they were denied food, water, medication, and beds during the production of the show. Additionally, dozens reported that various injuries took place during the first filming sessions, as well as mistreatment, sexual harassment, and not being paid for overtime.[13] On September 16, 2024, a class action lawsuit was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.[14]
According to a December 2024 Rolling Stone report on the working conditions for Beast Games published earlier that month, a portion of a tower exterior fell on a crew member on September 11, 2024. Later that month, the Ontario Ministry of Labour confirmed that it had opened an investigation into an on-set industrial incident on September 11, 2024. It stated that two of the employers, Blink 49 Studios and Manhattan Beach Studios, were each issued a "requirement." The Toronto Police Service also released a statement saying that they had been called to set for the incident but were not investigating as there was not a criminal element.[15]
The series became Amazon Prime Video's most watched unscripted series ever and its second largest series debut of 2024 behind Fallout, getting 50 million viewers over the course of 25 days. Amazon noted that half of the show's audience came from outside the United States.[22][23]
The show was received poorly by critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 13% based on 8 critic reviews, with an average rating of 3.8/10.[24]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 38 out of 100 based on five critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[25] Several reviewers critiqued Donaldson's performance as loud and shallow and the show's lack of focus on its contestants.[3][26][27][28] Naomi Fry of The New Yorker wrote that the use of contestants' numbers instead of their names made it difficult to empathize with them, unlike other reality shows.[29]IGN, The Guardian, Vox, and PC Gamer criticized the show for closely following the premise of Squid Game while stripping away its dystopian tone.[3][4][5][28]
In response to IGN's 2/10 rating, Donaldson wrote "Yeah, sad one person who doesn't like me can just label something a thousand people poured their lives into a 2/10 when it's clearly not."[34]
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