L2P, “live to play,” is the tongue-in-cheek tagline of ARIA Online, a new VR-MMORPG that promises to be the most immersive game of all time. Containing an expansive fantasy world said to look "as real as reality itself" and a system where character deaths are permanent and monsters level up alongside the players, ARIA Online is certainly poised to deliver. Short of that goal, it at least has everything it needs to become a living, breathing, and truly high-stakes MMO. But like all good dreams, this one does not last. Less than a day after the game's launch, ARIA Online’s neural network inexplicably goes rogue and locks its connections down. No longer able to log out, and with their very lives tied to the characters they made, ARIA Online’s players find themselves trapped in a veritable nightmare where they must constantly work to outpace their enemies. Indeed, they can no longer “live to play.” In this new iteration of the game, they must “play... to live.