| .hack//G.U. | |
|---|---|
 Cover of .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth | |
| Genre(s) | Action role-playing |
| Developer(s) | CyberConnect2 |
| Publisher(s) | Bandai Namco Entertainment |
| Creator(s) | Hiroshi Matsuyama |
| Artist(s) |
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| Writer(s) |
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| Composer(s) | Chikayo Fukuda |
| Platform(s) | |
| First release | .hack//G.U. Vol.1//Rebirth May 18, 2006 |
| Latest release | .hack//G.U. Last Recode November 1, 2017 |
| Parent series | .hack |
.hack//G.U. is a series of single-player action role-playing games for the PlayStation 2, developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment between 2006 and 2007. The series contains three games: .hack//G.U. Vol. 1//Rebirth,[a] .hack//G.U. Vol. 2//Reminisce[b] and .hack//G.U. Vol. 3//Redemption.[c] As in the previous .hack games, .hack//G.U. simulates a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called The World—the player controls a character who plays the fictional online game. They were directed by Hiroshi Matsuyama who aimed to address criticisms of the previous series. Its narrative, by Tatsuya Hamazaki, was written concurrently with .hack//Roots, an anime set before the events of the games Produced by Bee Train, which depicts Haseo's first days in The World. However, due to narrative and character discontinuity resultant from Roots being written by a completely different production team than the games, manga and novels released as part of G.U., Cyberconnect2 now considers the prequel anime to be one of the non-canon entries within the .Hack Franchise.
The series has also been adapted into a manga, a light novel, and an animated film.
The story focuses on a character named Haseo. He hunts another player named "Tri-Edge" who killed his friend Shino within the game which caused her to be left in a coma in real life. Haseo joins an organization that is also tracking Tri-Edge. The reason Shino and other players fall into comas is connected with AIDA, a mysterious computer anomaly that infects their characters.
Despite strongly positive reception by the games players, Critical reception to the games upon release was mixed, with reviewers focusing on how the developers dealt with the issues regarding the previous .hack games and the execution of the storyline across the three titles. The first game got higher ratings; critics praised the addition of new gameplay features, while parts from the story focused on developing the cast beyond Haseo himself and their relation with him had been labeled as filler despite such advancing the purpose of the greater story, Haseo's own development, and such sidestories fitting with .hack 's motif of the time as framing itself as a story occurring within the world of an MMORPG and defined by a set player's experience in that realm. Though the character depiction and development of Main Character Haseo remained consistently praised with how such was executed.
A high-definition remaster of the trilogy, .hack//G.U. Last Recode, was released for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows in November 2017, and was released on Nintendo Switch in March 2022. The remaster marks the first time that .hack//G.U. was released in Europe. The collection received more praise than the original trilogy due to such solving some issues with the gameplay and presentation.
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