Rez is a rail shooter developed by United Game Artists and released in 2001 for Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. Players control a hacker navigating a virtual cyberspace environment, working to prevent a critical artificial intelligence — one essential to humanity's survival — from shutting itself down after being overwhelmed by an excess of information. The game places strong emphasis on the fusion of visuals and music, with player actions directly influencing the soundtrack and on-screen imagery in real time. Enemies, environments, and the player character all evolve in response to progression, reinforcing the audiovisual integration at the core of the experience. The result is a game that treats shooting mechanics as inseparable from rhythm and sound design, distinguishing it from conventional entries in the rail shooter genre.
The world of Rez is set in the near future on a massively overpopulated Earth with society crippled by crime rates, and on the verge of meltdown. In an attempt to resolve the chaos, a new global network was created: Project-K, overseen by a self-aware artificial intelligence named Eden. However, the increasing information flow and infection by a virus (the main character) confused Eden, allowing her to begin questioning the meaning of its existence and the consequences of her actions. Trying to fathom the paradoxes that surrounded her and realizing the power she possessed, she shut herself down. The player character and protagonist is a hacker virus unofficially named Swayzak, traversing the Project-K network on a mission to re-awaken Eden and to reveal the true being at her core by progressing deeper through the system, and destroying the other viruses, anti-viruses, security programs, defense systems, and firewalls within.
