Black Mirror – Season 3: Playtest

As someone who has been playing games for years and who has experienced this form of entertainment developing from three simple blocks on the screen (Pong) to extremely realistic worlds like those in for example Grand Theft Auto, I sometimes wonder where we’ll eventually end up. At the moment virtual reality and augmented reality are hot, because they are able to offer a new experience where “presence” is the magic word. As a player you must have the feeling that you are really in a different place. The headsets follow the movements of your head and the world you experience matches that perfectly. It is a field that is still young in its current form, but how will it evolve? Playtest tries to give an answer to that question in a typical Black Mirror way, directed by Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane)

Cooper (Wyatt Russell) wants to explore and find himself and decides to backpack through various countries. He eventually ends up in London and has so little money left that he is unable to travel back home. Through Tinder he meets Sonja (Hannah John-Kamen), who suggests he applies for a VR-tester job at a mysterious game developer so he can earn enough to return. He is invited and his first experience is some kind of “Whack a mole” game with a cute cartoon character. After this he is asked to enter an abandoned house for the next test.

What starts as a very light episode slowly turns into something which more resembles horror and where you, just as the main character, start wondering which things are real. The script often plays with that notion, but also plays with the concept of how much time has passed (something the White Christmas episode also did). And if technology is so closely connected to your physical body, like it is, where you are plugged in “Matrix style”, what would happen if there is a bug in the system which could have severe impact on the way your brains work. It is an atmospheric, dark episode.