Hypnospace Outlaw is a Phantasmagoria of Early Internet Madness

This bizarre video game draws you into a strange, otherworldly ’90s internet experience

Hypnospace Outlaw has been getting a lot of attention from gaming press recently. With a recent console release, an inclusion on Xbox Game Pass, and a juicy new content update, everyone’s eyes have been on this 90’s nostalgia-fest. So I picked it up for the same reason everyone else did — because it promised a nostalgic collection of geocities-style webpages for me to explore within a virtual ‘90s computer. I was expecting novelty, I was not expecting an intelligent insight into the innocent highs of the early internet and how it came to be the tainted, cynical tech world we know today. What can I say, it’s always nice when an indie game catches you off-guard with genius and charm.

I’ll be brief on the plot itself — it’s a game that deserves to not be spoiled. Hypnospace Outlaw is set in an alternate-universe 1999, where the internet is much the same as it was back then, except many people choose to browse it in Hypnospace — a network you connect to in your sleep, using a neural headband that interfaces with your dreams.

Fear not, you can still skin your media player in your dreams too. Source: No More Robots.

You play as an enforcer — essentially, a moderator for the Hypnospace internet. Your boss emails you with a new case, and off you go, sleuthing the internet for clues on where to find the wrongdoers and unsheathing your banhammer when the time is right. Some days will have you chasing petulant cyberbullies, other days it will be cunning blackhat hackers. Regardless, you’ll spend your days taking in the unabashedly garish self-expression that could only exist in a pre-social media internet.

It’s a beautiful but cautionary tale of the freedom of the internet. Hypnospace allows teenagers to freely express themselves, but some also include a bit too much information about their relationship dramas, and some use the anonymity of the unlisted webpages to bully those who have made their weaknesses a little too apparent.

It’s only second-hand embarrassment until you remember you did the exact same thing. Source: No More Robots.

Meanwhile, the older generation relishes the ability to celebrate the values that are important to them — nostalgia, family, and religion. And while they are, as you would expect, more susceptible to viruses designed to destroy their computers or webpages, they are equally susceptible to false information being spread by their inexperienced peers. Before you know it, the golden oldies are unwittingly transmitting viruses to each other or taking part in a misguided crusade against Hypnospace’s copyright infringement systems (blaming Hypnospace’s developers, instead of the company that issued the cease and desist order).

Sound familiar? This is the true genius of Hypnospace Outlaw. Yes, it celebrates the ‘90s internet, but it’s also incredibly aware of the issues we face on the internet today. Our version of the ‘90s internet didn’t have such a prevalent problem with keeping the older or less knowledgeable safe, but that’s only because we progressed a little slower than Hypnospace’s world did. you see, the CEO decided that he didn’t want his internet to be just for “geeky losers”, so he broadened the appeal, and brought in a whole host of new issues because of it. I won’t spoil the surprise too much, but let’s just say that Hypnospace’s developers display a cockiness and naivety that increasingly mirrors Facebook and Zuckerberg as the story progresses.

Terry might have some questionable web design skills, but he uploads a mean screensaver. Source: No More Robots.

This just scratches the surface of the charming, funny, and accurate writing of Hypnospace Outlaw. I haven’t even touched on the interactive fiction, the virtual pets, or the dark web file-sharing service, but I’ll leave all of that up to you to discover — because discovery is the greatest reward this game can offer you. Through trawling new webpages and revising old ones as the days go on, these goofy, garish screens begin to evolve into real people that feel like they have a life outside of this midnight social network. It’s a beautiful pastiche of internet culture, somehow melding the innocence of ‘90s BBS boards and geocities pages with the modern anxieties of social media and a net controlled by shiny, sleek megacorps.

I should leave it here, before they find me and [CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO VIOLATION OF HYPNOSPACE LAW].