It's 2:47 AM on an ordinary Tuesday. In server rooms from Virginia to Singapore, routers go dark. Satellites lose sync. The internet — the nervous system of modern civilisation — simply stops. Now what do you do?
~10 min · No sign-up · Mobile friendly
The first day is over. Here's where you stand.
You adapt. You observe. You find the path.
This is a free interactive scenario game that places you inside a world where the internet has suddenly and completely vanished. Over 7 in-game days, you face 28 real decisions — where to find food, how to communicate with loved ones, whether to prioritise your own survival or your community's. Four hidden stats (Preparedness, Community, Independence, and Resourcefulness) track your choices and determine your final personality result. The game draws on real data about internet dependence, supply chain fragility, and historical examples of infrastructure collapse to create a scenario that is speculative but grounded.
Each day presents a richly written scenario followed by several situations, each with two choices. After you choose, you see what percentage of other players made the same decision. At the end of Day 7, your dominant stat reveals your survival type: The Strategist, The Connector, The Self-Reliant, or The MacGyver. A data visualisation shows how deeply modern society actually depends on the internet — and a comparison note shows how your choices stacked up against the crowd. The whole experience takes about 10 minutes.
The consequences would be immediate and cascading. Banking and financial systems would fail within hours, as 97% of transactions depend on internet infrastructure. ATMs, which hold only 2–3 days of cash reserves, would empty quickly. Supply chains — optimised for just-in-time delivery using internet-connected logistics — would begin failing within 24–48 hours. Hospitals would lose access to patient records and telemedicine services. GPS navigation would degrade. Emergency services would struggle to coordinate. Economists estimate that a sustained total internet outage would cost the global economy approximately $1 trillion per week.
Dependency runs deeper than most people realise. Over 5 billion people use the internet daily. Global e-commerce exceeds $6 trillion annually. An estimated 43% of businesses would fail within one week without internet access. The average smartphone user checks their device 96 times per day. Power grids in most countries use internet-connected SCADA systems for real-time management. Modern water treatment facilities rely on internet-connected monitoring equipment. Even physical cash is largely managed and replenished through internet-coordinated logistics. The internet has become, in the words of internet infrastructure researchers, "the critical infrastructure of critical infrastructure."
Society functioned before the internet — but a sudden disappearance would be far more disruptive than the pre-internet era was, because so much infrastructure has been built on the assumption of internet availability. Countries with stronger analogue backup systems (older landline infrastructure, print newspaper traditions, local radio networks) would adapt more quickly. Key adaptations would include reverting to paper-based financial records, AM/FM and shortwave radio for news, physical mail for communication, and cash economies for commerce. Disaster researchers studying regional internet outages (like major hurricane impacts on Puerto Rico or Myanmar's internet shutdowns) suggest that communities with strong pre-existing social networks and local skill diversity recover fastest. A permanent global internet loss, economists estimate, would reduce global GDP by approximately 3.4% per year — roughly $3 trillion.
If you enjoyed this, try these: Trolley Problem · Would You Rather · Moral Dilemmas
Last updated: March 2026 · whatifs.fun — Free interactive games, experiments & simulations