The Doctor Who episode 'Extremis' has a similar plot. 'The Plagiarist' (2011) by Hugh Howey is a short novel which deals with similar themes and ideas.

The Matrix (1999) described a world whose population is unaware that the world containing their minds is a virtual reality simulacrum. Dick story Time Out of Joint (1959) presents a man who is unaware that he is living his life in a physically simulated town until changes in his (apparent) reality begin to manifest themselves. In writing, the Frederik Pohl short story ' The Tunnel under the World' (1955) deals with similar philosophic themes and satirical criticism of marketing research, although in Pohl's story the described simulated reality is mechanical, an intricate scale-model whose inhabitants’ consciousnesses reside in a computer, rather than being solely electronic. As time and events unwind, he progressively grasps that his own world is probably not 'real' and might be only a computer-generated simulation. The protagonist, Douglas Hall, is with Lynch when he vanishes, and Hall subsequently struggles to suppress his inchoate madness. The simulator's lead scientist, Hannon Fuller, dies mysteriously, and a co-worker, Morton Lynch, vanishes. The computer-generated city simulation is so well-programmed, that, although the inhabitants have their own consciousness, they are unaware, except for one, that they are only electronic impulses in a computer. Simulacron-3 is the story of a virtual city (total environment simulator) for marketing research, developed by a scientist to reduce the need for opinion polls. Galouye, is an American science fiction novel featuring an early literary description of a simulated reality. Simulacron-3 (1964) (also published as Counterfeit World), by Daniel F.

Simulacron 3 daniel galouye