In Uplink (Uplink: Hacker Elite in North America) the player is a freelance underground computer hacker working for the well-known Uplink Corporation in 2010. The aim of the game is to use your Gateway (a secure stop-off point for communication to the Internet) to hack into various targets, and gain recognition among the hacker community. This leads to bigger and more lucrative jobs, which pay more and more money. This money can then be used to upgrade the users Gateway, or purchase new software and hardware to make hacking bigger targets a possibility.