The year is 2045, and Columbus, Ohio is the fastest growing city in the world—if you can even call the fragile-looking iron frames with trailer homes stacked up top of one another a city. Overpopulated and polluted, the world is in an energy crisis, and no one goes anywhere because “there’s nowhere left go to.”
This is the future depicted in the new trailer for Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg’s foray into a dystopian future where everyone is addicted to virtual reality.
Videos by VICE
Ready Player One‘s teens and young adults, known as the “missing millions,” spend their days jacked into the “Oasis,” a virtual reality wonderland where people race down virtual representations of Manhattan streets while wrecking balls attempt to smash them, blast Freddy Krueger to smithereens with hand cannons, and hobnob with the Iron Giant.
It’s not all fun and games, though. The billionaire creator of the Oasis plans to leave his entire fortune to whoever can find an Easter egg he hid in the system, and the tale kicks off after protagonist Wade Watts (played by Tye Sheridan) finds one of the keys pointing the way.
If you don’t want to wait until the March 30, 2018 release date, you can pick up a copy of Ernest Cline’s 2011 science fiction novel of the same name.
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