The film opens in the world of Free City, a video game where players can take part in action-packed missions like spy jobs or bank robberies. The biggest players are the ones that wear sunglasses, as it gives them an advantage over other characters. Among the many non-player characters is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a bank teller who enjoys his mundane and routine lifestyle. He works with his best friend, a security guard named Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), and they always have to play the part of helpless bank employees as they get robbed.

Elsewhere in Free City is a sunglasses character called Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), who is interrogating another player (Hugh Jackman) for info on an artifact she is searching for. Afterward, she walks near Guy and Buddy as they walk home, and Guy hears Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” play as Molotov Girl walks past him. He comments on the song, which surprises her because she is used to hearing all the stock phrases each NPC has to say. Guy becomes smitten and follows after her but is hit by a train, sending him back to his home to relive everything. When Guy goes back to work, the robbery takes place, but Guy decides to do something different and tries to acquire the sunglasses off of a robber (Dwayne Johnson), accidentally killing them with their own shotgun even as the player in the real world tries to take Guy down. He takes the sunglasses and leaves the bank. When he puts them on, he sees various parts of the game highlighted to show what they are there for (the bank for robbery mission, for example). He finds that he can pick up health boxes to fix himself up, and he continues to literally see the world through new eyes. However, when he tries to change things like his regular coffee order, the other NPCs appear to get suspicious of Guy.

Outside in the real world, Soonami, the company behind Free City, catches wind of Guy’s activities, thinking he is a hacker who used a NPC skin to take down other players. Two employees, Walter “Keys” McKey (Joe Keery) and Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) go into the game as their avatars, a stripper cop and a pink rabbit, to confront Guy. They chase after him, but he got limited edition sneakers that provide him with high jumping skills. Guy tries to escape them by grabbing onto a wrecking ball but he misses and falls, saving himself with a bubble suit. However, Keys and Mouser find Guy and kill him, thinking they have taken the “hacker” out for good.

An interview is shown of...