In the year 2125, there exists something called "Isium brain chips."
They are nanochips you get surgically implanted onto your brain. First developed for daily tasks such as managing grocery lists or helping dementia patients, their power showed in videogames.
With their neural modulation technology, player could experience true first-person videogames. VR goggles were soon outdated after the first games appeared on Isium.
Players could experience physical sensations such as vision, smell, taste, touch, etc. As if they were really there in the imaginary world.
You play as if you're actually in the world of the game.
Complete immersion.
A new term was established for these games "Full Dives (FDs)."
Among all the various FD games that had been released throughout the years, one stood above the rest as the only one in it's genre.
Hexahedron.
It had been developed ten years earlier, in 2115 by an anonymous group, rumored to be laid-off employees from the biggest videogame corporation: Wyrntek. A Finnish company that had been through severe economical struggles in the past few years.
Compared to other FD games, Hexahedron gave the players an incredible amount of freedom.
It was classified as the only FDMMORPG (Full Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.)
Rather than a systematic, limited game, it gave the players the freedom and room for creativity of a tabletop RPG such as Dungeons & Dragons.
The main way the game worked was through a key item known as attribute shards. They could be fused, upgraded, sacrificed, traded, etc.
Each part of player customization could be altered with the use of these.
For example, player classes were a spectrum. Perhaps you wanted the strength of a Barbarian with the charisma of a Bard and the wisdom of a Cleric.
With the attribute shards you could do that, with some grinding required, of course.
These were infinite combinations possible, every time someone uploaded their current build onto the community forums, discussions would arise on how said class should be called.
It was like trying to classify every possible point on a 4 dimensional square, you could try, but there would always be room for more.
The system was created in such a way that, unless a player followed a step-by-step guide on making a class, no two characters would ever be the same.
'No two things ever being the same' was Hexahedron's entire selling point.
NPCs would never give out the same dialogue, two dungeons could maybe look similar enough, but some difference would eventually stand out.
Then, with the Reaper Scythe, the Slime Slayer Level VII reward, an item that allowed you to harvest the souls of what you slay and wear it as a costume. And the Cell Desintegrator, forged from the Ashen Dust, a mythic drop from the Ashfang boss, which allowed you to freely modify any cosmetic you owned.
Players could edit the appearance of everything in their possesion.
The Hexahedron's environment was a large cube. Each side awaited players who ventured into it's enormours world.
There were six sides to it: Hafnarlund, Solskeggja, Aegisdraum, Niflsthor, Seidhrdal, Muspellsheim.
A vast, open world. You could explore any side whenever you pleased, of course, if you were brave enough to do so.
There was a clear progression in place, the one mentioned before was what seemed intended by the devs.
But there were no restrictions or walls between the sides, so a Lvl. 1 Noob could wander off into Muspellsheim and be instantly one-shotted by a roaming brute.
A system that could be modified at the player's will, graphics to be tweaked at one's heart's content. It was just the right amount of customization a player needed to be happy, in other words, infinite.
The game seemed to have an almost overnight success, it was shadowdropped on the Isium Game Store on a random tuesday.
By thursday people were already calling in sick at work to spend the entire day playing it.
It even got on the news. Entire schools worth of students had seemingly 'disappeared' and they all just so happened to be locked in their rooms, connected to the Isium servers.
It was the most perfect game ever, or atleast it used to be...
Flash forward to 2125, on Hexahedron's 10th anniversary. The game was bought for the staggering amount of One Trillion American dollars.
Star inc. Had been the company that now claimed ownership over the game.
The entire world seemed to give out a collective "Huh?" at the news. Before that Star inc. Was a pretty obscure company. They started off producing decent quality keyboards, eventually moving to other PC peripherals.
To this day, no one knows where or how Star inc. Got those trillion dollars from.
The point is that Hexahedron was now owned by a massive company, the original developers who had poured their soul, passion, sweat and tears onto their game were no longer in charge.
Now replaced by corporate puppets with the only goal of increasing the CEO's networth.
And to no one's surprise, the game was ruined.
The first change was a minor one. Before, when you killed a boss, it would just choose random loot from the loot table to drop based on chance.
Now it spun a wheel, like an actual fortune wheel you'd seen in casinos, it actually felt like gambling now.
Then, it'd land on an item, and give you the option to spin the wheel again, however, that wasn't free.
[ Try again?
1x Spin 199 Hypercubits
Watch an ad! (5/5 Remaining) ]
Hypercubits were the game's premium currency. Before, they could only buy you donations to directly support the creators, or 2x skill boosts, which is pretty scummy already, but not as much as this.
Then, came the paywalls.
Using texture packs had been locked behind a paywall. Star Inc. gave us the excuse that "It allows you to directly support the artists behind the texture packs!" But those same artists spoke out, mentioning the 70% commission Star Inc. took from them.
The breaking point for many was,
[ Out-Of-Jail Pass: Immediate unban. Price: 5000 Hypercubits ]
The playerbase didn't remain quiet as Star inc. paywalled just about anything they could.
Forums exploded with players threatening to quit the game forever, leaving negative reviews and making hours long video essays.
A sudden mandatory update was released. Nothing had been posted or announced about it.
But it named itself "The 2.0 Update."
Players downloaded it, perhaps it'd be Star inc.'s way of addressing the backlash.
[ Deathlink enabled. Logging out or dying in game will fry your brain in the real world.