IT'S 2045, and the world is a scary place. There's widespread unemployment, the population is beset by poverty and people feel utterly hopeless. But gamers are able to escape, by becoming their own personal avatars and entering an infinite digital universe called Oasis, where they can be whatever they choose to be.
At least, that's the future as imagined by US author Ernest Cline in his best-seller Ready Player One, which has now been turned into an action adventure film by veteran director Steven Spielberg.
"All you need is an imagination, and that will take you far in the Oasis," explains the director, who has been at the helm of a long list of blockbusters including ET, Jaws, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Jurassic Park.
"But when you escape from reality, you're also, in a way, divesting yourself of any real human contact. So, the story is entertaining, but there is also a bit of a social commentary."
The young hero at the centre of the story, underdog Wade Watts, is played by 21-year-old Tye Sheridan.
Understandably, the young actor – who has also starred in X-Men: Apocalypse – was incredibly nervous before meeting 71-year-old Spielberg for the first time.
"I actually remember calling my dad and he was like, 'You know what, just enjoy the opportunity and I'm sure you're going to be great'," he says. "I always call my dad before I do stuff. It puts me at ease."
But the experience was even more overwhelming once he went inside the room, and realised Spielberg would be operating the camera himself, at times from just two feet away.
"There's always an intimacy with him," notes Sheridan, "which I think does disarm you."
British actress Olivia Cooke was in that same audition – and won the role of Samantha and her avatar Art3mis, who "opens up the mind and heart" of Wade and his avatar Parzival.
"You're put into a waiting room that has various Steven Spielberg memorabilia from all his different films and you're just sat there just trying to calm yourself down," recalls the 24-year-old, best known so far for US TV series Bates Motel.
"He put me at ease as much as he possibly could, but I was still having a panic attack."
When it came to casting the power-hungry Nolan Sorrento, the head of a giant corporation which wants control of Oasis, Spielberg chose Australian star Ben Mendelsohn.
"I first saw Ben in the TV series Bloodline, which I was completely infatuated with," recalls the film-maker. "I said to myself, 'I don't know when or in what, but I am going to work with that guy'."
Sorrento's chance to take over the Oasis comes when its creator, video game designer James Halliday (played by Mark Rylance), dies without any heirs.
To find a worthy winner of his vast fortune and full ownership of the Oasis, he leaves behind a game within the game – along with three challenges, players also have to find an Easter egg hidden somewhere inside the virtual universe.
And when Wade's avatar Parzival tops the leader board, the evil Sorrento decides to drastically up the ante, and it becomes a matter of life or death.
This is far from the first bad guy Austrailian actor Mendelsohn's played in a film – notably, he was the villain Director Orson Krennic in the Star Wars film Rogue One.
Is he ever concerned about what vibes he must give off to be cast in such evil roles?
"I hope it's something of a version of 'job well done'," quips the actor, before adding with a friendly laugh: "But no, it's not something I worry about a lot."
Mendelsohn calls himself and Spielberg "OG's – original gamers", saying that they have played arcade space shooter Asteroids together.
And cleverly, in line with the book's popular culture references, the film itself is crammed with Easter eggs – as computer-game in-jokes are known – from iconic video games, comic books and films.
But even viewers who are not gamers themselves will be enraptured with the reality-bending world of Ready Player One, says Sheridan.
"That's the great thing about this movie," he continues. "Although there's a tonne of gaming references, it's made for people who have never played a game their whole lives."
Meanwhile, it's undeniable that gaming is a world that's had a mixed relationship with women – elements of the gaming industry have been accused of sexism and misogyny in the past.
But Cooke insists that Ready Player One is an inclusive film for women.
"I think we've got such wonderful female characters and the reason why there are sometimes underwritten or weak female characters in films is just testament to bad writing," she says.
"So I think people can really relate to Lena Waithe's character, Helen, and mine for being so selfless and so intelligent and so passionate and active the whole time."
Although he had worked with motion capture on The Adventures Of Tintin and The BFG, with this film Spielberg wore a VR headset, and used cutting-edge technology to direct his cast in a virtual environment.
"They created an avatar for me that let me walk through the space and see the actual set," he notes. "And once I figured out how I was going to shoot each sequence, I asked the actors to put on the goggles so they could get a feeling of what their environment looked like. Otherwise, you're acting in a big white room with a bunch of digital cameras looking down at you.
"It's confusing for any actor or director to walk onto a bare-naked set and try to imagine what's there. With the goggles on, we didn't have to imagine."
Capturing an adventure too big for the real world certainly sounds a new experience, even for Spielberg, whose career spans a mighty five decades.
"The layers we had to achieve to put the Oasis on screen made it one of the most complicated things I've ever done," he confides. "There was motion capture, live action, computer animation... It was really like making four movies at the same time."
:: Ready Player One is in cinemas now.
