Wade Owen Watts/Wade3/Parzival/Bryce Lynch: the protagonist, a poor orphan from the "stacks" surrounding metropolitan Oklahoma City. Wade names his OASIS character Parzival after Percival, the Arthurian knight famous for his quest for the grail, and dedicates his life to finding James Halliday's Easter egg.

Helen Harris/Aech: Wade's best friend, fellow gunter, and rival in the quest to find the egg. Though her OASIS avatar, Aech, is depicted as a white heterosexual male, Harris is in fact an African-American lesbian. Harris grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and both she and her avatar are about the same age as Wade.

Samantha Evelyn Cook/Art3mis: a famous gunter and blogger from Vancouver, British Columbia. Wade has a huge cyber-crush on her, which is complicated by their competition in search of the egg. She chose her avatar's name from the Greek goddess of the hunt.

Toshiro Yoshiaki/Daito and Akihide Karatsu/Shoto: Japanese gunters who work as a team in their quest for the egg. They have a generally tense, but sometimes-friendly relationship with Parzival, Aech, and Art3mis. These five are referred to as The High Five, since they were the first five to obtain the first key.