Many years ago, long before the age of the iPhone, there was this strange and wonderful thing that only weirdos and shifty characters inhabited. Video games have almost always been popular, growing exponentially in the 80s, 90s, and onwards. They are the heart of geek culture, and I do mean proper geek culture where you are seen as weird for liking something; not this Comic-Con thing of the last fifteen to twenty years. Other media outlets: Books, movies, and TV shows, don’t really understand the world of video games, at least not with the full grasp “hardcore gamers” would like.

Ready Player One is a perfect example of this. If you’ve read it or listened to Wesley Crusher read it, you most likely know where I’m going with this one. As a book, it beautifully captures a near-futuristic microcosm of our reality reflected back at us through the lens of video games, corporate interests, and a David Vs Goliath hero story, all done expertly by Ernest Cline. Those of you that have just seen the Spielberg movie think it was a fine popcorn flick that had too many bits that were “a bit too Wreck-it Ralph.” It is not the worst movie to feature video games, but it lacked human empathy for characters that were missing entire arcs of their story.

Well, it seems that after several months of 2020 dragging its heels, much like part of that film, we’re getting to the good bit of the year. In July, Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One is releasing the second book in the series titled, “Ready Player Two.” Well, it wasn’t going to be called “Barry’s great adventure into the pixel underworld,” that would be stupid. As early as 2017, Cline has been working on the second novel in the series. Not-so-coincidentally, he was working with Zak Penn on writing the movie at the same time. Speaking with CinemaBlend, Cline said: “I wanted to make sure I had finished at least a rough draft of the sequel before I saw the movie because I didn’t want the movie to influence me too.”

Ready Player Two is available to pre-order as of yesterday and will release on November 24th, 2020. Ready Player Two is set in the year 2045, when the world is plagued by climate change, overpopulation, and mass abject poverty. These issues occur all as the world looks for 80s pop culture escapism through a VR headset and haptic gloves in the Oasis. Previously Cline has stated that the story of the sequel novel will follow the same characters, but “The fun of the sequel for me would be exploring other facets of pop culture that I love and not just using the same ones over again,” Cline said to Den of Geek. I, personally, cannot wait for November.

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