Alice In Borderland Season 3 Is Officially Bringing Back The Coolest Game That The Netflix Show Ignored

The first trailer for Alice in Borderland season 3 confirms that the Netflix show is bringing back one of the coolest games from the source material that the live-action adaptation skipped. Although Alice in Borderland is one of Netflix’s best live-action adaptations, the show has made some big changes to Haro Aso’s manga. This includes adding original games such as the Queen of Spades’ Checkmate as well as completely changing certain games from the source material.

Some of Alice in Borderland’s changes to the manga worked very well, including but not limited to having Chishiya play the Jack of Cards. Other choices, on the other hand, were not as great For example, the first game played in Alice in Borderland season 1 was created for the Netflix show and did not match what happened in the manga. Now, Alice in Borderland season 3 is officially bringing back the original Three of Clubs from the manga.

Alice In Borderland Season 3 Is Bringing Back The Three Of Clubs From The Manga

Netflix’s Alice In Borderland Changed The Manga’s First Game For The Show

In Alice in Borderland season 1, episode 1, Arisu and his friends are still trying to understand where they are and what is happening when they find the location where the Three of Clubs will be played. Although it takes a while for them to understand what exactly is going on and what they're supposed to do, they eventually realize they have to win a series of games to survive. The first game was called “Dead or Alive” and had Arisu, Chota, Karube, Shibuki, and an unnamed woman figuring out which doors they should open.

However, in the manga, the Three of Clubs was a completely different game. Called “Good Fortune, Bad Fortune,” the original Three of Clubs happened in the middle of the street amidst a festival and had the players drawing paper fortunes that revealed the difficulty of the question they were supposed to answer. If they didn’t get the answer right, a flaming arrow would be shot at them from a long distance. The goal was to find the right path to get out of there before everyone had been shot dead by the flaming arrows.

Why Alice In Borderland Season 3 Is Bringing Back The Original Three Of Clubs

The Original Three Of Clubs Might Not Have Worked In Season 1

Karube, Arisu, Shibuki, and Chota standing in an empty room in Alice in Borderland.

While there is no official reason as to why Alice in Borderland changed the Three of Clubs for the show, we can assume it was for both budget and narrative reasons. The original Three of Clubs is a big-scale game where a lot is happening at the same time and would require lots of visual effect shots. Additionally, for a live-action show that has to sell the premise of the story to a wide audience and not just fans of the manga, starting with an action-packed game of that scale might not have worked.

The Alice in Borderland manga began in 2010 and ran until 2016 in a total of 18 volumes.

Alice in Borderland’s “Dead or Alive” was a very interesting game that allowed us to understand the rules of that world before getting into the more complex, high-stakes games. Now that the show is entering its third season and is bigger than ever, Alice in Borderland is in a good position to bring the “Good Fortune, Bad Fortune” game back. It remains to be seen where the game is being played – in the real world or the Borderland. It’s also unclear what the designation of the game will be since “Three of Clubs” has already been used.

Alice In Borderland Season 3’s Games Must Live Up To The First Two Seasons

Alice In Borderland’s Biggest Selling Point Are The Games After All

Alice in Borderland finally using “Good Fortune, Bad Fortune” is a good sign for the upcoming season 3. One of the biggest challenges the new season faces is creating new games that can be as fun and engaging as the ones from the first two seasons, especially now that most of the manga has been covered. There are not many unused Alice in Borderland games for the Netflix show to include, but the fact that they are bringing the original Three of Clubs back five years after when it was supposed to have been used is exciting.

That said, we can assume most of the games in season 3 will be original ones. With Alice in Borderland season 2’s finale having caught up with the manga, the Netflix adaptation must now be an original story building from where we left off. The series might also incorporate some elements from Alice in Borderland: Retry, the 13-issue sequel to the manga set a few years after the main story. Alice in Borderland has been different enough from the manga while respecting the source material, a trend that season 3 will hopefully maintain.