In the dystopian future of the year 2052, society slowly spirals into chaos. A lethal virus, the “Gray Death”, ravages the world. The only vaccine, “Ambrosia”, is in such short supply, it is only available to those wealthy enough and deemed “vital to the social order”. With no hope for a cure for the common people, riots occur worldwide and a number of terrorist organizations have formed.

The story of Dreamfall is presented as a narration of Zoë Castillo, a 20-year-old resident of Casablanca in 2219, who lies in coma and recounts the events that led thereto. Her narration concerns Project Alchera, an international conspiracy by the Japan-based toy manufacturer WATIcorp, that aims to introduce a potentially-destructive lucid dream technology ("dreamer console") to the market. One byproduct of their research is Faith, a girl used for testing the hallucinogenic drug Morpheus, who upon dying thereof transferred her consciousness to the DreamNet mainframe computer Eingana. As a result, she appears on the Wire, causing white noise disrupting the infrastructure of Stark.