Spielberg's Ready Player One – in 2045, virtual reality is everyone's saviour

At last, a film that dares to show the positive side of living in virtual reality. Steven Spielberg's future shocker, about people using VR to escape hell on Earth, promises to be everything The Matrix wasn't

It's 2045 and Earth has been brought to its knees by catastrophic climate change and a worldwide energy crisis, not to mention famine, poverty, disease and war. In short, everything we presently fear has come to pass. It is the ultimate dystopian future.

That's the premise of Ready Player One, a work of science fiction from 2011 by Ernest Cline and now a movie by Steven Spielberg. Wade Watts, the story's protagonist, is born into a generation that feels failed by reality. The only thing making life bearable is the OASIS, a globally networked virtual reality world. Using a visor and a set of haptic-feedback gloves, Wade and millions like him enter its realm daily.