The time: November 2019

The place: Los Angeles

The climate in (formerly) sunny California seems to have radically changed; evidently some ecological disaster has occurred. Is it because of pollution? Or the aftermath of a nuclear war? Or a combination of the two, perhaps? Whichever it is, the opening scene suggests heavy industrial pollution is at least part of the cause.

Note: in BR's source novel, a nuclear war was responsible for the ecological devastation on earth. The game also assumes a global war.

Also, whatever the cause, it seems to have made most animal life all but extinct. (A situation that is only hinted at, at best, in the movie, but that was much more integral to the story in the book on which BR was based.)