2025,Irvine,California.
Leo Jenkins slumped in his gaming chair, the only light in the room emanating from the triple-monitor setup before him. On screen, the brilliant special effects of a AAA title tried in vain to capture his attention, but Leo's gaze had already gone unfocused. The in-game character, a cybernetic ninja with a neon katana, stood on the rooftop of a cyberpunk metropolis as rain slicked down his chiseled jaw.
"Boring," Leo muttered, casually hitting the Exit to Desktop button.
This was the third "epic masterpiece" he had pre-ordered this month. The first one he'd beaten in forty hours, which felt more like forty hours of overtime. The second he'd played for less than five, because its "open world" was as empty as a politician's promise. As for the one on screen, the graphics were impeccable, but the gameplay was no different from games he'd played a decade ago.
"We build stronger graphics cards, faster processors, and more realistic physics engines — and for what? So the skin textures and pores on game characters are clearer than my own?"
Muttering to himself, he expertly navigated to Reddit's r/gaming subreddit. It was the largest gaming community in the world and his daily spiritual home.
The top posts were the usual mix of player ecstasy and rage:
Cyber Samurai 4099's optimization is a piece of crap! My 5090Ti is running it like a slideshow!
(SPOILERS) I cannot accept the story for the final boss in Dragonkin Chronicles VII!
LMAO, E&A Corporation just released another reskinned mobile game. This time they promise "no in-app purchases" (except for the season pass, skins, and XP boosters).
Leo scrolled like a robot until an inconspicuous post title caught his eye.
[Anyone heard of Warfront Online? A new game claiming 100% physics simulation.]
The OP was some guy named "KeyboardWarrior." In the post he described a "game" he'd found in some obscure corner of the internet with a tone of both suspicion and curiosity.
"…I swear, the website was so basic it looked like my freshman-year web-design project. No trailers, no developer info, just a few lines of hype text and a screenshot that looked like an old WWII photograph. It claimed to be 'the first-ever virtual reality experience with 100% physics simulation, unscripted AI, and a persistent online world.' It also said it was recruiting for a 'first-round alpha technical test,' with only ten slots available worldwide."
The replies below were filled with predictable sarcasm.
LVL99_CouchPotato: "100% realism? Yeah, I bet the file size is only 2.4MB, right? lol"GamerGirl_Sarah: "Another scam. Click here for a 'free VR headset' and they steal your credit card info."xX_ShadowSniper_Xx: "Don't be a moron, dude. Not even AAA studios dare to claim 100% realism. It's definitely some indie dev who's been drinking."
Leo should have just laughed it off, but on a strange whim he clicked the link the OP had included.
The website was indeed shockingly primitive. On a pure black background there were only a few lines of cold, white text and a single, lonely button: [Apply for Access].
But what grabbed his attention was the screenshot.
It wasn't a render from a game engine. It looked too "dirty," too "imperfect." The sky was a grim, lead-gray; the beach was littered with debris; and the black smoke from burning ships in the distance seemed to pour through the screen. A soldier in a British uniform lay on the sand, his face not covered in high-definition textures but in a mixture of soot and mud. And in his eyes was a look of… exhaustion and despair that could never be simulated with polygons.
"Interesting…" Leo stroked his chin.
As a veteran gamer who had played nearly every VR title on the market, he knew the line between 'game' and 'reality' all too well. And this image was perched right on that blurry line.
"It's free, anyway."
With the mindset of someone about to expose a fraud, he clicked [Apply for Access] and casually entered his email.
Unexpectedly, the moment he hit submit, his phone pinged.
A new email. The sender was unknown, and the subject line contained a single phrase: [Access Confirmed].
The email's content was just as shockingly brief:
"Welcome, Tester. Please download the attached launcher and ensure your neural-link VR rig is properly calibrated. Your test slot is unique; do not share it with others. Good luck."
The attachment was a file named Warfront_Launcher.exe.
Leo checked the file properties.
Size: 2.4 MB.
He couldn't help but laugh out loud, immediately tabbing back to the Reddit thread to reply to the guy who'd made the joke.
EZ_Mode_Leo: "@LVL99_CouchPotato Hey man, you were right. The file size is actually 2.4MB!"
Amid a sea of "LMAO" replies, Leo put on his expensive Deep Dive Mk. II VR helmet. It was the top-of-the-line model, capable of connecting directly to the cerebral cortex to provide a near-perfect virtual sensory experience.
He launched the primitive launcher.
No epic music, no flashy company logo animation. His vision was filled with a single, cold dialog box that read "Connecting to 'Chronos' server..." above a slowly crawling progress bar.
Once the bar hit 100%, the screen switched to an incredibly simple character-creation interface.
[Enter your ID: _________][Select Faction: [Allies] [Soviets (Not Yet Available)]]
Leo thought for a moment and typed in the ID he'd used for years: EZ_Mode_Leo. He selected [Allies] and then, with a playful smirk, hit the massive [Enter Game] button.
In that instant, he felt an irresistible pulling sensation from the depths of his consciousness.
This wasn't the familiar, simulated sensory input from his rig. It felt more like… his soul was being ripped out by an invisible hand, yanked from his 2025 California apartment, and violently shoved into an entirely different time and space.
Vertigo, dizziness, and an unprecedented sense of reality hit him all at once.
Hiss—
With a sound like a mechanical door opening, Leo felt himself stumble out of a narrow space.
The blinding sun made his eyes, accustomed to the dim room, squint shut. The thick smell of smoke and gunpowder, mixed with the salty sea breeze, savagely assaulted his nostrils and made him cough. The deafening roar of explosions echoed in the distance, and the sandy ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble with each blast. A symphony of screams, shouts, and the whistle of aircraft engines assaulted his eardrums.
It took him a few seconds to adjust. When he finally opened his eyes and saw the scene before him, he froze.
He was standing at the entrance of a crude, concrete-like building. Before him lay a vast, chaotic beach. Countless soldiers in various uniforms scurried across the sand like ants; a distant city was engulfed in flames, and the wreckage of ships dotted the sea. A German Stuka dive bomber shrieked overhead, the bomb it dropped sending a colossal plume of water into the air nearby.
He instinctively looked down at himself. He was wearing a simple Allied soldier's uniform, a pair of sand-covered combat boots, and he held a heavy M1 Garand rifle in his hands. He could even feel the cold metal of the gun and the rough texture of its wooden stock.
It was all terrifyingly real.
However, as a top-tier gamer, Leo's brain—after an initial half-second crash—was immediately flooded with an indescribable ecstasy. His well-honed internal "game-review system" kicked in, analyzing everything.
A perfect physics engine! A seamlessly loaded macro-map! Tens of thousands of independent AI units! And this… this unparalleled sensory feedback!
He looked around wildly, like a child at Disneyland for the first time. Then he threw his arms wide and, with all his might, let out his first shout into this new world through the comms channel:
"Whoa… dude! The graphics on this Warfront Online are insane! Is this a cutscene? It feels so real! Hey, GM, where's the tutorial?!"