LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Just because you enter "The Matrix" doesn't mean you have to lose touch with your friends anymore.

America Online and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, both units of Time Warner Inc., on Monday said the popular AOL Instant Messenger service would be embedded in the upcoming video game "The Matrix Online."

The game, based on the "Matrix" movies, is about a world where machines have enslaved mankind. To battle the machines, rebellious humans enter a simulated world called the Matrix, where they lose much of their ability to contact fellow humans.

"Matrix Online" is what is known as a "massively multiplayer" title, an online game that can support thousands of players in what amounts to a self-contained virtual world.

Players will be able to keep their in-game identities separate from their regular or instant-messenger personas, AOL said, by linking their in-game name to their instant-messenger screen name.

When players sign in to the messenger service, "buddies" they have made from within the game will see their in-game name, rather than their regular AOL or AIM identity.