Unlike most games, which remained open 24/7, [Evolution Online] completely overturned conventional practice. The game and its developers simply gave up on trying to keep all the servers running 24/7 in order to gain more players. Instead, it chose to restrict players to their local servers based on their time-zones, with each server starting by 9 p.m., and closing by 6 a.m.
This would mean that players could enjoy the game through the night, and continue with their own daily activities during the day, undisturbed by the game.
It was implemented by the federation in order to ensure the federation and its various zones were running smoothly without being hindered by the game.
Currently, Axel had nearly 2 hours of free time before the game would release, and naturally, he did not wish to do anything. So, he opened a random game he had saved on the headset and began playing, while pondering about his current situation.
His past-self had been brought to ruin by Ray Holdings. Not only him, but they had also gone to the extent of destroying his parent's company, both in real life and in the game, Axel's father even died of a heart attack from the shock of losing everything. Later on, Lily fell sick but Axel had no money to help her, and in desperation, he could only look to take loans. By that point in time, the only one who had helped him was Dan and he was able to save Lily but instead, his mother passed away from terminal cancer which she did not tell anyone about.
Apparently, she had been diagnosed with treatable cancer a year after she returned from her business at the border, but due to the lack of money, she did not tell anyone, and this was the result.
Although the definition of terminal cancer had been revised multiple times due to the advancements in technology being able to save and cure patients who are closer and closer to death, it still remained an incurable disease to this day. Rumours about how Ray Holdings and Ocean were withholding technology to treat cancer since it would make the treatment a lot cheaper were already everywhere but no actual proof was ever made public.
Soon enough Lily also passed away and Axel was left alone in the world with all his assets liquidated for money to try and help his sister's condition. However, she died before he sold everything, his VR headset being the last remaining item in his possession excluding a few pairs of clothes.
The headset had become both the painful reminder of having failed everyone in his family, as well as the last possession he had that reminded him of him even having a family.
With these complex emotions, Axel simply just shifted back with Uncle Lee, who had also sold his son's house to help Axel. But fate was a cruel mistress and Axel lost everything besides the headset and decided to devote his full life to the game. Not for any ambitions he had over dominating the game, but because it was the only thing he could do and the game also earned him just enough money to cover his daily expenses for living with Uncle Lee.
In the end, after reaching level 160 in the game, he was baited into attacking a party and gaining a red name, before being completely destroyed by the party; dropping all his equipped items and a whole level. After this incident, Axel gave up on the game, and life from the accumulated grief that had piled up in his heart.
He then tried to bomb the headquarters of Ray Holdings, only to be stopped before he could even enter the building and arrested before subsequently being put into jail. There, an assassin probably from Ray Holdings, came and killed him without any theatrics.
These were the memories he had recalled when he had fallen unconscious this morning but only now did he have the time and patience to actually go through all of them. Although his emotions and feelings had already fully integrated with the Axel of the future who had died, and the two had combined had formed a new Axel, he still felt himself having the need to recall everything once more, his emotions churning like the sea on a stormy night.
By the time he had calmed down, he noticed that he had received a game over on his game, having died in a trap.
Unlike all of these VR games —including the one he just played— that just used 'fully-immersive' as a sales pitch, Evolution Online was truly fully-immersive. It did not restrict movement or ideas, allowing anything and everything to happen in the game within its rules.
Getting a notification that it was now 0000 hrs, Axel went on the Evolution Online website, and clicked on buy through his headset.
[System: 006]
He was the sixth person to buy the game.
'Holy shit, I bought it the moment it was released, yet there were 5 other people who bought the game before me??!' Axel thought to himself as he waited for the 16-petabyte game to download.
Within just a few seconds, the download was complete, and Axel opened the game.
[Welcome to Evolution Online Version 1.00]