Ready Player One.

In 2045, most of the earth will be reduced to slums, and people will spend most of their time in the virtual reality of the virtual reality game "oasis", working, playing and looking for Easter eggs. A well-known Easter egg was hidden somewhere in the game before the death of Oasis founder James Halliday, and the first player to find an Easter egg in Oasis was rewarded with oasis ownership and Halliday's $500 billion estate. This attracted many hunters to the game, including Nolan Sorrento, ceo of Halliday's rival maker Innovation Network, who gathered a large number of indentured laborers to form a sixth-man force to perform the egg hunt alone.

In Columbus, Ohio, Wade Woz, a seventeen-year-old player who lives in a stacked district of trailer houses, acts in oasis as Parsifal as a fictional character, working with three of his best friends, Archie, Daito, and Ashur, to work together to avoid the crisis of zero progress due to the death of the character. Of the three levels in search of easter eggs, manhattan racing in the first level has not been reached for a long time due to its extreme difficulty, while Wade and Archie meet the famous female player Artemis when a challenge fails. When Wade arrives at the museum containing Halliday's memories of his life in search of clues, one of the words "back in time" gives Wade a quick idea, so he reverses the starting line into the hidden route in the next race, directly to the finish line and gets the first key and the second clue to find the egg.

With Wade's success, Artemis, Archie, Daito, and Asho followed in his footsteps, and the five became popular as the "Oasis Top Five". Artemis then begins to work with Wade to find the key, and the two learn in the museum memoirs that Halliday's secret lover Kira is the second clue, and when the two of them later look for easter eggs at the Oasis Dance Club, Wade, who is in love with Artemis, tells his real name, causing Ellock, a mercenary player employed by Sorrento, to eavesdrop and find out Wade's true identity. Sorrento tried to recruit Wade to work for him, sending his assistant Fernale to load a bomb at Wade's home after he refused. Wade escaped death because he was not at home, but his aunt was killed, and a grieving Wade was taken to the Resistance Hideout in the fight against the IOI industry, where he was able to meet Artemis herself, Samantha Cook. When the two get along, they crack the clues of the second level, gather the top five of the oasis to enter the real scene of the horror movie "The Shining", travel through many horror scenes to find Kira, and get the second key and the third clue.

After Finding and infiltrating the Resistance's hideout, Samantha rescues Wade and is voluntarily captured and sent to the Indentured Labor Center of Innovation Networks to work as a game worker. Wade, on the other hand, is rescued by the real-life Ache, Daito, and Ashio, and together they rely on Archie's delivery truck to get online. Sorrento finds the Tragic Fortress on the Planet doom where the final level is located, and sets up a barrier around the fortress through the Game Artifact Spirit Ball. Wade hacks into Sorrento's workbench, mistaking Sorrento into thinking he is being held hostage and freeing Samantha. Wade calls on all Oasis players to join forces on the planet to attack the fortress, and while the players fight the Sixth Man forces under the leadership of Archie, who transforms into the Iron Giant, After Samantha closes the barrier, Wade is able to enter the third level: play Adventure on Atari 2600.

Sorrento went so far as to stop Wade from firing the Bomb of Destruction, killing all the players on the map, but Wade alone earned extra life by the 25-cent coin previously given to him by the museum curator. Samantha leaves the corporate building and is picked up by Archie in the truck, but Sorrento and Funale follow them and chase the car all the way back to the Stacked Towers area. The key to Wade's key to cracking the key is to find the "Easter egg" in Adventure, get the third key and prepare to accept the oasis management contract given by Halliday. But Wade realizes that this is similar to the scene in which Halliday and his best friend Morrow are separated, so he refuses to sign the contract and passes the final test. Halliday returned to his own image and handed the Golden Egg and the Destroy Oasis button to Wade, and left the Oasis satisfied.

After customs clearance, Sorrento and Fernale were arrested, and the Innovative Network Company underwent a massive transformation, and the sixth person in all liabilities was able to get out of debt. Wade chooses to run the oasis with all of his partners and invites Back to Morrow as a senior advisor, while Wade learns that Morrow is the museum's director. The Oasis Five, who have since managed Oasis, decided to shut oasis down two days a week, so that people had to spend more time in the real world, and Wade and Samantha also began their romance.