A young computer programmer, Kevin Flynn, breaks into his former employer to gather evidence that he owns the intellectual property of programs his company stole from him. The sentient mainframe of the company uses a digitizing beam to transport him into the computer, where he must fight inside the video games he wrote.

Whether it be a digital world, other universe, different location in the same universe, or same location separated only by time, entrance to a foreign land distorts, mirrors, and changes things.