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The New '20s

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The Twenty-Twenties or Two-Thousand (and) Twenties. (Either way it's okay for us.)

As The New '10s discussed concerning the 2010s in order to distinguish it from the 1910s, so will the current decade be considered as such in order to not confuse it with the 1920s.

Not much can be said about this decade yet— since it just recently began and mostly feels like a continuation of the last decade so far (as with the beginnings of decades past) —except for one thing; a novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2 for short) that originated in China near the end of 2019 began to spread rapidly across the world, quickly causing a major socio-economic impact unseen since the Great Recession in the late 2000s, if not since World War II. Millions around the globe became infected with a new disease (coronavirus disease 2019, a.k.a. COVID-19). For most, it's a mild illness that inflicts you with flu-like symptoms, but the unlucky people who find themselves with severe symptoms are left literally gasping for air note . Because the disease is already infectious during the two-week-long incubation period, it's considered a far greater threat than its most comparable predecessor, the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak (also caused by a strain of coronavirus), and countless countries have implemented quarantines to try and slow down the spread of the virus.

We've yet to see how much of a long-term impact it will make on human society, but the ensuing quarantine in many countries is already causing prospects of a second Great Depression in the wake of the massive stock market crash and unprecedentedly high unemployment rates that the pandemic has already caused, as plunging revenues left business, especially ones that cannot operate without face-to-face human interaction, with no ways to pay their employees. Should COVID-19's impact be severe enough even if quarantine ends within the first half of the 2020s, it's possible that the pandemic may be the defining moment of the decade, much like how 9/11 defined the 2000s or the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump defined the two halves of the 2010s, and indeed some analysts are already projecting it to be the next big cultural and political "reset" button.

See Also: Turn of the Millennium, and The New '10s.

Examples of Media set in this decade:

    open/close all folders 

    Unclear/Several years 
Anime and Manga

Films — Live Action

  • The climactic scenes of Click take place from 2023-2029.
  • One edition of Metropolis dates the events to 2026. The other versions place it in 2000, 3000, or simply do not assign a year.

Literature

  • The prologue of Black Bullet is set in 2021 during the Great Gastrea War, with present day events taking place ten years after, following humanity's defeat in the war.
  • Pale:
    • The main story begins in Spring 2020, roughly six years after Pact, and ends around early 2021.
    • The first five of six epilogues take place roughly over the course of January to Fall 2021 (Starting from just three hours after the final chapter for the first epilogue before the others skip ahead to three days, weeks, months, and seasons later), and the sixth and final epilogue skips three years ahead to around 2024.
  • Sword Art Online starts in 2022 and continues until at least 2026.

Live Action TV

  • How I Met Your Mother has flash forwards to 2020 during Ted, Marshall and Lily's college reunion, Marshall's campaign as District Attorney in an unspecified year, and the titular mother dying in 2024.

Video Games

  • The First Encounter Assault Recon series takes place around 2025 or so, though no definitive time-frame is given other than that the third game is set nine months after the first two, and so may have passed in to 2026.

     2020 
Comic Books
  • As the name says, Iron Man 2020 is set in this year, with Arno Stark taking Stark Industries and Iron Man's armor after the death of Tony Stark and becoming the new version of this superhero (set in Earth-8410).
    • This comic later got a successor of the same name set in the main Marvel universe in January 2020.

Films — Live Action

  • Annihilation Earth is set in 2020.
  • Most of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm takes place during the first half of the year, just before and also during the COVID-19 pandemic (which is revealed to have accidentally been Borat's doing).
  • Code Name Phoenix is set in a peacefully unified world of 2020.
  • Future X Cops begins in 2080, but then its main characters time-travel back to 2020.
  • The alien invasion of A Quiet Place overwhelms the world within the first three months of 2020, and the film is set immediately after.
  • The mecha boxing of Real Steel takes place in 2020.
  • Reign of Fire is set in the England of 2020, 20 years after the dragons' awakening.
  • Stranded follows the first human expedition to reach Mars, which occurs in 2020.
  • While Terminator: Dark Fate opens in 1998, the rest of the film occurs in 2020.
  • Yesterday (2002) is set in 2020 on the Korean peninsula, which has been unified by then.

Literature

  • To no-one's surprise, Titanic 2020 is set in the titular year.

Live Action TV

  • Dark Angel: The second half of Season One and first half of Season Two are set in 2020.
  • The Doctor Who episodes "The Hungry Earth" and "Cold Blood" (that marked the return of the Silurians to the New Who series) are set in the small Welsh hamlet of Cwmtaff in 2020.
  • Knights Of God takes place in 2020 when the United Kingdom is ruled by a fascist religious order.

Tabletop Games

  • Cyberpunk 2020, as you can probably guess by the name, is set in the year of 2020.

Video Games

  • The global conflict of Battlefield 4 is fought during 2020.
  • Crysis takes place in August 2020.
  • Endgame begins on August 2nd, 2020.
  • EndWar takes place in 2020.
  • The opening of IS Defense tells us it is set in 2020.
  • Raid 2020 is set in the titular year.
  • Time Commando is technically set in 2020, but your enemies come from every other time period due to time-distorting vortex.

Webcomics

Western Animation

  • The Mitchells vs. the Machines takes place in late September 2020, as shown through the timestamps on the home video montage.
  • Sealab 2020 is set in, well, 2020, and it focuses on the crew and their exploits around the said underwater research center.

     2021 
Anime and Manga
  • BNA: Brand New Animal takes place in 2021 as Michiru is confirmed via ID to have been born in 2003 and has her 18th birthday in the 4th episode.
  • The epilogue for Your Name is set five years after 2016, placing it in 2021.

Films — Live Action

  • The world of Johnny Mnemonic is beset by a global pandemic and hooked on the virtual internet in 2021.

Live Action TV

  • In The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home", the rescue ship Galaxy 6 commanded by Colonel Sloane arrives on the planet V9-Gamma in order to bring its 187 inhabitants back to Earth. The settlement's leader Captain William Benteen decides to stay behind. It is also mentioned that Los Angeles is the biggest city in the world.
  • In The Outer Limits (1963) episode "The Invisible Enemy", the M-1 is sent to Mars to assess the feasibility of colonizing it in the future. However, its crew never returns to Earth as they are killed by a Sand-Beast. The final transmission received by Earth is one of astronauts screaming.

Video Games

  • Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. mostly takes place in 2021, after a prologue set across 2014-2015.
  • Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters' main story is explicitly set in 2021, as evidenced by the How We Got Here introduction opening with a "G.C. 2021" title card. Notably, the Trendi Phenomenonnote  heavily parallels the real-life COVID-19 Pandemic, what with the population being forced to stay inside during a swarm of monsters to the point that they have to rely on technology in order to keep in touch with each other, along with access to the Ultra Dimension being suspended due to the outbreak. Compa even mentions the pandemic in a side-event, criticizing the conspiracy theories that come with it.
  • Resident Evil Village: Looking at a baby picture of Rose in Chapter 1 reveals that it's set in February 2021, 4 years after Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, as Rosemary is stated to be six months old and was born in August 2020.

Western Animation

  • Sealab 2021 takes place one year after its predecessor, focusing instead on the hijinks of a crew full of crazies, idiots and Dr. Quinn.

     2022 
Films — Live Action

Literature

Video Games

     2023 
Films — Live Action

Live Action TV

Video Games

     2024 
Anime & Manga

  • Heavenly Delusion: The past storyline takes place around 2024, 15 years before the present, with the Great Cataclysm happening on November 11th.

Fan Works

  • Marks of Time takes place in 2024, more than twenty years after the previous story Ancient Languages.
Films — Live Action
  • Songbird by Michael Bay takes place in the fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which COVID-19 has mutated into an even deadlier virus known as COVID-23.

Literature

  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
    • In the novel "Emotional Chemistry", the Eighth Doctor and two companions visit Moscow in 2024.
    • The short novel "Artificial Intelligence" from the "Short Trips: 2040" anthology, stated Imogen Kelly Quaye, human teenager and Fifth Doctor's companion, was born on February 3, 2024.

Live Action TV

Video Games

     2025 
Comic Books

Literature

Live Action TV

  • Power Rangers S.P.D. is set in the year 2025.
  • In The Outer Limits (1963) episode "The Duplicate Man", Henderson James has a duplicate of himself created by the Federal Duplication Bureau so that his clone can catch the Megasoid.

Video Games

     2026 
Fan Fiction

Literature

     2027 
Anime and Manga
  • The Distant Finale of Digimon Adventure 02 takes place in 2027, 25 years after the final battle with MaloMyotismon.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Arise begins in 2027. Despite being a separate continuity just like everything else in the franchise, it takes a prequel approach to show how Motoko Kusanagi formed together the elite group of agents that would become known as Section 9.

Films — Live Action

Live Action TV

Visual Novels

Video Games

     2028 
Films — Live Action

Visual Novels

Video Games

     2029 

Video Games Films — Live Action

Literature

Video Games

Western Animation

Works made or continuing during the 2020s:

Advertising

Art

Asian Animation

Audio Plays

Eastern European Animation

Film — Animated

Hanguk Manhwa Aenimeisyeon

Pinball

Radio

Sports

  • The rebooted XFL, Vince McMahon's own football league, had its inaugural season in the spring of 2020. After being cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, the league was sold off. Its new owners plan to start up again in 2023.
  • The rebooted USFL, owned by Brian Woods under a new company name after the previous USFL owners let go of most of that league's trademarks in 2014, held its inaugural season in the spring of 2022. For its inaugural season under the revival, all eight teams playing in that season, including the Birmingham Stallions, will play their games in Birmingham, Alabama under two different stadiums.
  • Olympic Games:
    • The Summer Olympics were held in Tokyo in 2021, and will be held in Paris in 2024 and in Los Angeles in 2028. This will be the first decade in which all the host cities had previously held the Games (Tokyo hosted the 1964 Games, Paris did it in 1900 and 1924, and L.A. held the 1932 and 1984 Games).
    • The Winter Olympics took place in Beijing in 2022 and will take place in Milan / Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2026. This decade will mark the first time a city has hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics (Beijing having previously hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics). Cortina is also a repeat host, having hosted the 1956 Winter Games by itself.
  • The World Cup:
    • The men's FIFA World Cup was held in Qatar in 2022 and will be held in the United States alongside a number of games in Canada and Mexico in 2026 (the U.S. hosted the 1994 Cup and Mexico held the 1970 and 1986 championships).
    • The FIFA Women's World Cup was held in Australia and New Zealand in 2023, the first of the women's edition to have multiple host nations. The 2027 women's host is likely to be announced in 2024.

Theme Parks

Web Original

Web Video

Alternative Title(s): The New20s, The2020s

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