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My personal theory on the "hidden plot" of Overlord
🕑 Added 2025-08-11 19:44:38 +0000 UTCHey everyone, i just wanted to share a theory of mine since i decided to reread a bit of Overlord as of late. This is something i came up with years ago but never shared online (and i have no idea if anyone already shared it somewhere).
This theory revolves around Bellriver and the info we got on him. As we know by his bio, he was killed because he discovered something damning against the megacorporation of 2138, and he passed said info to someone.
Now, as we know, the Japan of 2138 is a terrible place to live in, even though the rich have a better time than the poor, i still think it is not a pleasant existence even with all the money they have. After all no amount of money will make you experience a real clear sky, or a pleasant walk through nature.
So, i think Bellriver was investigating on Yggdrasil (and the megacorporation behind it). Now, he might have been an agent of the falling government (more probable in my image since you need a lot of resources to remain anonymous from these incredibly powerful people) or an independent investigator, or even part of some group of radicals.
But why investigate Yggdrasil? Well, my friend, as Satoru himself told us, the VRDMMORPG remained a top notch program for its entire lifetime of service. One of the first games to push the VR experience to its limits (by law) if i am not mistaken.
Now, you may ask why i am so fixated on Yggdrasil. Well, that is because i think Yggdrasil is (probably one of) the testing grounds for the ultra rich to escape this dying world. I mean, we all know the world is fucked, they know it too, they are on a timer to extinction. Wouldn't it be normal for the ultra rich to try and escape from this doomed world before its too late?
And since space travel is apparently not to the point of making it possible even in 2138, well, the only other option is literally escaping reality and (while they are at it) their mortal bodies.
A sort of virtual reality created for them to literally trascend and let their dying world and flawed body behind. Where they can be whatever they want, even gods!
Does this remind you of anything? Exactly! The transportation to the New World (very much an ironic name if this theory proves true).
So yeah, before they do this very risky move, they of course would need lab rats to test it on. And that is where Yggdrasil comes in. A huge successful VR game lasting more than 10 years (or how much they would need to create the first beta test for the "Ascension Project" I will call it this from now on).
And how did they select the optimal candidates? After all they could not just use any random person who might not even be good at the game or ambitious enough to use their power.
Well, selection is easy, put 200 incredibly rare and powerful items in the game, whoever manages to get them by the designated deadline would certainly be a cut above the rest, no?
So now, we come to the very much speculative part, who is really the Dragon Emperor and why is his fate unknown, after all PDL would have said it clearly if his dad was simply killed (which i find bizzare seeing how he seems to be basically almighty).
Well, to me he is none other than the "GM" for the Ascension Project. He basically started the script that would summon the designated players every 100 years. So they (the testers back in 2138) could see how the program works and the effect this Ascension has on players (the lab rats) in various batches, maybe even fixing various problems in between summonings. Dragon Emperor (GM) might have simply logged off after starting it since the test had to occurr without external interference. So, why does PDL call him father? That, to me, could simply be a programming choice when the New World was created, nothing more.
I also imagine they would have run a background check on all the holders of the WCI to make sure they were mostly poor sods nobody would notice missing (like Satoru).
So yeah, Bellriver was investigating this Ascension Project and probably sniffed out something by infiltrating Yggdrasil. He might have caught wind of part of the project or even its aim, and so it was imperative for him to be killed by the megacorporations trying this out before he could relay the plan to someone who could actually hurt them (which also brings me to the conclusion Bellriver was working for the government, since they are the only entity who could even come close to the megacorporations in power).
Now, who did Bellriver give the info to? No idea, i would like to think it was Touch-Me, since he might be a policeman in real life, or even a fellow collaborator of Bellriver. But he could have simply given it to the people he was working for.
To conclude, the Ascension Project is a huge project carried out by the megacorporations of the world to try and escape the dying world and the human mortal shell. It is, most likely, not limited to Yggdrasil, but many other games around the world, using the top crop of the players as lab rats to test what this type of ascension beyond mortal limits would do to them in the long run. (Which is why i think they are all stuck in a program running at incredible speed so that the testers in 2138 might have the result of hundreds of years of testing in weeks or months).
But yeah, that is my personal theory on what is going on behind the scenes in Overlord. I really hope to hear your comments on this and your ideas or other personal theories.
Comments
Zero Sin
Take in account that in this simulation they can “slow down” time as much as they want (hence, simulating 600+ years in the NW in weeks or months) and nothing says their super powerful computers couldn’t do better making millions of years pass in like a real life year. Yes, nothing would last forever, but still that is long enough to be almost considered an infinite amount of time.
Blackjack
Huh, that's actually a very interesting theory, also unfortunate that even if it was true, the author has likely abandoned it in favor of just ending the story. Although there is a slight problem with your Theory, and that is the concept of time and decay, as well as data storage. To start with, the time and decay, basically, if this theory is true, then the world the rich plan to escape to would be housed in some data bank center. Also, likely some of the employees, or a good chunk of them, might be sent to that place as well to keep the secret of its existence. Basically, if you keep this project a secret and work on it, you can join the elite rich in the simulation and be important for free. However, here's the issue: people still need to be around to fix those data banks and perform maintenance. If this was done to escape extinction, then that likely means there are no more people to fix them. They could have robots, but those robots will also need fixing. And even if you have robots to fix the robots, where are they getting the parts from? Storage? Those parts from storage will only last as long as they aren't used up, but they will be used up and become depleted. So now they need new parts. Probome is the factory that where built in no longer exists. Now, even if they have robots making replacement parts for both the system and robots, they would need to have mining robots and other legitimate stuff to get the raw material, then turn that into parts. The other problem is that no drive has infinite storage. There will come a point where things on the hard drive, the rich are living in, and they will either need to delete unimportant stuff, but this is only a temporary fix because eventually there will be no more unimportant stuff, and a whole lot of can't delete this. This would mean the only real solution would be to build more drives to store more data but like the situation above, the world is gone, so you can not get it from the factory, so they will have to make it themselves and gather the raw resources to make the drives. granted all these problems, if the data center remains fully operational and they have a whole lot of replacement parts, it will only become a problem hundreds, if not thousands of years in the future, after they have already gone into the virtual world. but it is still an issue they would need to solve if they want to live forever. still is a cool theory thought.
Zero Sin
Oh, i don’t think the New World is a place the ultra rich wants to escape too, i just think that is a testing ground. I think the final product they want is a reality they can mold with their minds, like a blank canvas you can endlessly paint on. I think the New World is a “preset” used to see the effects of long life and almost omnipotent power in humans, but not at all the final product the ultra rich wants.
Clement Grazziano
I really like your theory about this "hidden plot", but at the same time I see it a little contradictory with all the information that Maruyama ask show us about how work the New World but as you say the world in which Story was send can be one of the places where the ultra rich people want to escape to have a better life as gods and Satori and his friends where only experimental rats in this project because I also think that those kind of people wouldn't be so nice to create a huge video game to make people happy or just make money.
