The book skips a period after the climax of the previous book and frustratingly only drops tidbits of how Jack got free every few hours, BUT there’s no indication that those parts are in the past. Instead, the book spends an agonizing amount of time dealing with gameplay mechanics (it even goes through patch notes at one point) and training periods. It’s very tedious. Additionally, Jack sort of regresses as a character and is being a selfish dickhead for most of the time. If you want an evil protagonist, he certainly is one in this book. Sam also feels different. A bit more emotional, but since her player was role-playing, it’s hard to really have a good bead on the character or the player sometimes.
MASSIVE SPOILER BELOW!!!!
It turns out the reason how he escaped in the real world and why he has regressed, as well as Sam being different, is because it’s revealed in the last chapter how they got into the first login of the book: we’re not following the characters from reality anymore; the game made AIs of them to continue to further Jack’s mission to destroy the game. For some unrevealed reason.