Death’s Game Finale Ending Explained: Does Yee-jae defeat Death?

The fantasy thriller Korean drama Death’s Game released its last four episodes on January 5, 2024, with a dramatic ending. 

The series revolves around a troubled man who encounters Death after enduring multiple adversities and considering suicide. Death gives him a challenge: he must undergo 13 different deaths in various lifetimes to gain the opportunity to live again.

In the much-anticipated finale, the man realizes his mistakes and how he made his loved ones suffer by committing suicide. 

1. Choi Yee-jae Experiences His Mother’s Memories

Yee-jae wakes up inside his mother’s body and feels his mother’s dreams, struggles, and how she managed her life. Feeling his mother’s thoughts makes him realize how precious his mother is in his life. He also understands how his mother struggled after his father’s death and worked odd jobs. 

When he experiences his mother’s last memory, Yee-jae understands how much pain his mother had to go through after he killed himself. His death scarred the woman for life. Yee-jae’s mother also had to deal with rude co-workers who treated her as a bad omen as her son committed suicide. 

The entire experience reminds Yee-jae of Death’s words, which he can now understand the value of. After going through 12 deaths, he understands that it is the death of his loved ones that causes the most pain. 

2. Yee-jae Decides to Live His Mother’s Life

Yee-jae decides to lead the rest of his mother’s life within her body as it would enable him to continue living his original life as Yee-jae as per Death’s Game’s rules. 

While being in his mother’s body, Yee-jae goes to Mount Obong, a hiking place she frequently visited with his father. He wanted to fulfill his mother’s wish of going there with her son. 

However, Yee-jae’s mother gets severely injured while climbing up in the dark. She ends up in the hospital the next day, but Yee-jae feels relieved to see her alive. This makes him realize that his mother must have felt the same pain when she saw his dead body. 

As a result, he decides to live the rest of his life as his mother and spends 32 years this way. After leaving the body, Yee-jae realizes that he has been living his original life as a coward and in fear of Death’s Game. 

3. What happens at the end of Death’s Game finale?

Yee-jae shoots himself with Death’s gun and ends up at the place where he began contemplating suicide while standing at the edge of the cliff. In his new life, he decides not to commit suicide and picks up his mother’s call.

After Yee-jae’s mother passes away, Yee-jae wakes up in hell and meets Death once again. He pleads to Death to shoot him again to live his life as Choi Yee-jae again. When Death asks him why, he says he wants to hug his mother one last time.

Death informs Yee-jae that he already defeated her in the game and has also served his punishment by living his last life as his mother. She says that God will announce Yee-jae’s judgment. 

Finally, Death hands over her gun to Yee-jae, who shoots himself, only to wake up as Yee-jae once again.

4. About Death’s Game

Death’s Game is a South Korean fantasy reincarnation web series written and directed by Ha Byung-hoon , and starring Seo In-guk and Park So-dam.

Based on a webtoon of the same name by Lee Won-sik and Ggulchan which was serialized on Naver in 2019, it depicts the story of a person who, in the midst of frustration, begins a new life with death.

It is an original drama of TVING and is available for streaming on its platform, and on Amazon Prime Video in selected regions except South Korea and China.