Set in a future year 2000, Hardware depicts a world transformed into a radioactive, rust-saturated industrial graveyard following an unspecified nuclear conflict. Civilization has retreated into claustrophobic, high-tech slums where citizens live under a permanent orange sky, sheltering from extreme heat and toxic radiation levels. The film portrays an Earth that has become an ecological dead zone, where the only thriving industry is the scavenging and recycling of military and industrial scrap from the "Zone"—a vast, lethal wasteland surrounding the urban centers.

The societal dynamic is defined by a heavy-handed, fascist government obsessed with population control. This is enforced through mandatory sterilization programs and, as the film suggests, the covert development of autonomous genocidal machines like the M.A.R.K. 13. Earth is portrayed as a trapped, dying planet where technology is no longer a tool for progress but a self-repairing predator. The divergence from our actual history is rooted in a much more rapid environmental collapse and a shift toward industrial rock aesthetics and Luddite-inspired technophobia that gripped the late 1980s imagination.

Technologically, the film accurately anticipated the rise of autonomous drone warfare and the capability of machines to harvest energy from ambient sources, such as light and heat. While the film's prediction of a total radioactive collapse by 2000 did not occur, its depiction of biometric surveillance and the integration of computers into every facet of home security mirrors modern smart-home vulnerabilities. The film serves as a cautionary tale regarding unregulated AI self-repair, a concept that remains a significant point of discussion in contemporary robotics research.