Ready Player One is set in the year 2044 where the world is plagued by an energy decline. The main character, Wade Watts, is a teenager who lives with his aunt in a district stuck in penury called the stacks. The stacks consists of trailer homes that are piled up on each other. Wade spends all of his free time being a gunter on a device called the OASIS. A gunter is an egg hunter and in this specific case people are hunting for an easter egg that the creator of the OASIS left before he died.

An expansive amount of themes are found throughout such as friendship, competition, and determination. Ready Player One shows friendship by having the main character cooperate with others, identity due to the main character being a teenager and he is finding his place in his complicated world, competition because of the easter egg hunt, and perseverance. In order to find the carefully implemented easter egg one needs patience and motivation. Some people may not like the book because of its indulgence of classic video games.