YGO Duel Links Lore (massive wall of text ahead)

[[絶望] 𝔖𝔲𝔦𝔠𝔦𝔡𝔞𝔩_ℑ𝔡𝔬𝔩]

I wanted to do this for quite a while but this took way longer than i thought it would, not only writing up the entire thing but also to make sure it's correct and to fact check many of the informations, which is insanely hard considering that for some lore pieces you had to go back to 2017 to gather them/fact check them.
Also i'm well aware that not many ppl are interested in the lore of the game/are aware that there is lore in the game and i'm also aware that due to the length of this post many ppl will just skip through it or skip it entirely but i really like lore write-ups with little details ppl might have missed so here goes:

The start:
Duel Links has been created by Kaiba/Kaiba Corp. utilizing character states post/mid battlecity arc (DM), this leads to the assumption that the original Duel Links project happens somewhere shortly after the Battlecity Arc, the supposed purpose was another way to improve his dueling/challenge the pharao, all characters have a self-conscious AI that mimics not only the playstyle of those characters but also their personality, the player(s) are a part of this world and function as "test-subjects", some dialogue hints towards the gathering of duel data and styles.

GX and 5Ds aka the evolution:
The introduction of GX and 5Ds is lead by Mokuba under the instructions of Seto for the same purpose, GX doesn't have much lore in total the most interesting one being that characters within GX have a scaled back power to their "RL" counterparts, f.e. Yubel is still capable of controlling people but not to move Duel Academy to a completely different dimension, same goes for the 5Ds characters, they would in theory be able to use the signer dragons power but not to the same degree as they were able to in the anime, also the crimson dragon is not part of the game and can therefore not be summoned.
GX is fairly special when it comes to the characters and where their memories come from most characters only have memories for things/encounters from season 1 and 2 while some others esp main and main-side characters react to events/encounters from season 3 and 4 too, this counts also the characters from "cutscenes" and flashbacks.
5Ds character memories are fairly clear to sort for now, they include the Dark Signer Arc and only Jack, Yusei and Carly seem to react to post Dark Signer Arc events, such as Carly mentioning "And this is what i was supposed to be?!" after dueling her with a Dark Signer character.

Introduction of DSoD:
DSoD is a shift not only in lore but also the amount of it, first and foremost DSoD Kaiba took over from OG Kaiba as the developer and he is the only real consciousness in the game aside from Mokuba (not entirely true but i get to this in a little bit), Mokuba is a gateway between Kaiba's ingame consciousness and the outerworld and Kaiba Corp. also he assumingly provided the memory data for the 5Ds characters (ASSUMPTION), the appearance of Sera/Plana and at a later date the introduction of Aigami mark a huge point in DL, these characters are also their real versions and not implemented AIs, they are a massive security breach within DL and overwrite the fundamental workings of the world with their presence, this is why you can summon monster w/o tributing in duels against Plana, her appearence alone shifts the way the world works, which does shock Kaiba, Planas goal is to stop Kaiba to try to bring back Atem, same plot point as the DSoD movie more or less, due to this event happening DL is now considered canon and happens alongside the DSoD movie/slightly after, however there is a hint towards a difference in the timelines, *DSOD SPOILER AHEAD* Kaiba ports himself to ancient egypt to duel Atem in DSoD, this doesn't seem to be the case in the DL timeline, it is much more likely that Kaiba utilizes the game as means to bring Atem back and collects all the duel data to make Atem as strong of a opponent as possible, DSoD also marks an update point to the inner workings of DL, lorewise as much as gameplay/mechanics wise, Mokuba is scared that Plana managed to gain access to DL and that they can even use their powers in the world, Mokuba asks Kaiba if he wants something to be done against this security breach and Kaiba says no, replying that he needs this special kind of data of powerful individuals like Plana, also at this point DL world gets an update to be a self-evolving world, which is prob the lore way to introduce stuff like Zexal and Arc-V further down the line w/o breaking canon, the AI and world of DL gets fed by duel data from us (the players) and evolves steadily to give Kaiba more means to become the ultimate duelist, there is a very small hint towards a theory that makes every single duelist who participates in DL a previous KC-Cup or KC-Cup-like-event winner or at least top 3 finisher, Seto asks Mokuba to only collect data from the most capable duelists, Mokuba replies with, the next event concludes in a week this should give us plenty of new minds for this project.
The amount of players/downloads is also part of the real lore of DL, Kaiba makes multiple remarks to how many players are playing the game (have downloaded the game) and even says multiple times that the data amount is not enough yet.

Conclusion/the end of Duel Links:
In theory, if the game follows it's own lore the release of Atem as the real Atem (not Yami Yugi) should mark the end of Duel Links and the Duel Links project as this would conclude Kaibas goal to create the most powerful version of Atem he can duel, this might or might not include all other summoning methods that will and have been introduced but this would be the lore conclusion to this game, since the game breaks the 4th wall quite often it is possible that Kaiba would realize that the real players have surpassed Atem and comes to the conclussion that we are now his top priority, which could in theory lead to a really cool ending event if DL should die, event could be something like all PvE duels will only consist of Kaiba with insane difficulty levels and if you lose you get kicked from the game and can never open it again, until you either have only 1 player active who will then become the best duelist in the entire world or Kaiba who overcomes everyone but since we're talking about Konami this prob is not going to happen.

Additions:
The ingame events that update the ingame lore or introduce characters/events the existing characters shouldn't know about happen in real time and are taking so long due to the AI needing time to analyze duels, decks, etc to re-create the characters as realistic as possible, even going as far as updating their decks to higher their difficulty and to implement the reactions of the exisitng AI duelists to those new characters.

Flaws in logic and/or missing lore:
Reactions to or from characters in different timelines f.e. DM character reacting to a 5Ds character, it's not entirely clear if the movie Bonds Beyond Time is considered canon within DL since some characters react to stuff that happened there but not all of them do, which could be bc they focus on MCs but there is no definitive lore reason as to why that is, DM Kaiba vs DSoD Kaiba has both Kaibas as a real consciousness within the game at least as of now which would obv lead to a time paradox, the players never really play as Yugi or Seto or Alexis etc. the player just copies their skills or uses base skills so in theory the character pick system is nonexistent within the gameworld itself, the player always plays as the player as him/herself and not as a copy of existing characters, the Vagabond is how the player would actually look like to the characters in DL, speaking of the Vagabond, the Vagabond is appearently not a real entity in the gameworld, the Vagabond is supposed to represent other players but is nto a real ingame world asset to the world and is ergo not really existent.
The Tour Guide and the Card Trader are weird bc why would Kaiba not use some of his employees for this on top they seem to be either real duel monster spirits or the AI of DL is mimicing duel monster spirits which is either way super weird, why would Duel Monster Spirits chose to be in a virtual world or why would a AI bother to recreate spirits and to what purpose.
Ultimate goal of project Duel Links, we assume based on Seto's character and his previous passion and drive towards being the ultimate duelist that this is still his goal, however there could be a different reason altogether which would obviously render the "ending of Duel Links" thesis obsolete.
Inconsistencies in character behaviour and random/weird additions to the duelist pool, additions to the character pool such as Scud and his gang is weird as they serve close to no purpose obv for us you'd consider them filler content and comedic relief however within gamelore they have absolutely no reason to be there unless they are a "glitch".

Different options for the goal of Duel Links:
Duel Links could function as means of unification of all duel styles and a "bridge" between the different summoning dimensions that were mentioned during Arc-V, this however seems insanely unlikely since Arc-V is not part of this world (yet) + this would imply that DM Kaiba knew that a dimension breaking incident would happen in the future.

Duel Links as an archive for characters with the most impact in their respective timeline, this is a theory that is not supported by anything in the game lore but something that has been brought up anyways, Duel Links could function as a digital museum kinda thing however why would Kaiba insert his real conscious into this world.

Duel Links as a means to evolve dueling, Kaiba Corp. tries to innovate the way and means they duel for these means the Duel Links project has been created with a self-evolving AI and world that simulates world events at an accelerated pace, real duelist data feeds the system and "legendary duelists" throughout the times mark anchor points for the system and work as fixes and updates at the same time, while there is nothing lorewise that would deny this option i think this wouldn't fit Kaibas character and personality in the slightest but there is a chance that this could be a thing.



-This is all existing lore as of now (Jan 2020), i might write an update if something significant happens, if you want to know as to why this post lacks details it's because it was hard enough to write it the way it is in a fairly condensed manner, if you have any specific questions regarding the lore feel free to ask but there are things i'm not able to answer, the theories are mainly taken from reddit so all credits go to their respective creators however the entire lore write-up is entirely made by me, there are way more theories out there but i think this post is big enough as is.-