Yes, the characters were completely different along with the realm they inhabited but the story unfolded somewhat similarly. The protagonist was a withdrawn individual due to their real world experiences and the game AI glommed onto his brokenness to use as a catalyst to achieve a game pursuit while also helping the MC to move beyond their self-imposed limitations. The MC oddly accepted some literature seemingly written by an ancient mage as truly being an ancient account even though he was very much aware that the historical events dating back hundreds of year was simply made up stuff, most likely from the AI itself.
Travis Bagwell is a gifted writer and David Stifel was an excellent narrator but the story’s framework was too similar to the previous Awaken Online series that it didn’t captivate me as much as the first series book 1.