Ready Player One: 0000 Summary & Analysis

Wade is sitting in his trailer watching cartoons when an emergency news broadcast announces that James Halliday has died. Halliday was the designer of a massive multiplayer videogame called the OASIS and was one of the richest people on Earth. Even in the midst of “catastrophic climate change,” war, famine, poverty, and an ongoing energy crisis, Halliday’s death still warrants a special broadcast. Halliday died without friends or family, and he announces via a pre-recorded video message called “Anorak’s Invitation” that he will be giving his entire estate—valued at over $240 billion—to whoever meets a “single condition.” In typical Halliday style, the video is filled with references to 1980s pop culture.

Halliday recalls the videogames he loved as a child, and discusses the first “Easter egg” ever hidden in a videogame. Halliday morphs into his OASIS avatar, Anorak, and announces that he has hidden an Easter egg inside the OASIS. Whoever finds it first will inherit his fortune. He notes that the egg is very well hidden, but that he has left a few clues to help people find it. Three keys appear onscreen, one copper, one jade, one crystal. He recites the first clue, which begins: “Three hidden keys open three secret gates / wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits.” Halliday wonders aloud if he’s made the hunt too difficult, and then announces that the contest has hereby begun.

At the end of the video Halliday includes a link to his website, which now features a Scoreboard and a downloadable copy of Anorak’s Almanac, a 1,000-page collection of Halliday’s journals. After the video’s release, people all over the world become obsessed with the hunt. People suspect that familiarity with Halliday’s obsessions will help them win the contest, and thus 1980s fashion and music makes a big comeback in 2041. The hunt spawns a whole subculture, with egg-hunters nicknamed “gunters.” However, after a year passes and no one finds the first key or gate, the excitement begins to fade away.

More years pass and more people give up, until suddenly, on February 11, 2045, the Copper Key is discovered by an 18-year-old boy living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The narrator, Wade, is that boy, and he will now tell his story.