
Itō noted that casting the player into the role of a subscriber of The World creates a unique story-telling situation which draws the player deeper into the plot. Matsuyama stated that the team were proud of having Sadamoto design the cast, despite his lack of previous involvement in gaming, and said that working with him was a great opportunity. The developers looked at a number of MMORPGs such as Phantasy Star Online, Ultima Online, and Final Fantasy XI for inspiration, and drew influences from the prior works of character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto ( Neon Genesis Evangelion) and scenario writer Kazunori Itō ( Ghost in the Shell). A number of core ideas, including "slaying dragons or being a thief in London" were explored, but these were rejected in favor of an "offline/online game". CyberConnect2's president Hiroshi Matsuyama played a key role in developing the concept for the series. hack began in early 2000 with the aim of shocking and surprising the player and creating a distinctive product.
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hack series and remained as a supervisor for the G.U. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto designed the characters from the first. characters received mixed responses due to Haseo's antiheroic characterization but praise for his growth. Critical reception to the original characters has been positive for their designs and realistic traits. The initial characters were designed by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto while later instalments involved additional artists. hack was conceived by CyberConnect2 with the idea of creating a fictional MMORPG in order to simulate a realistic story. hack//Link where Tokio Kuryuu is transported into The World: RX and time-travels across the previous storylines in order to restore frozen players. hack//Roots, respectively, that involve a returning player under the name of Haseo who, after the loss of his guild, goes on a quest to find the player killer (PK) Tri-Edge who sent his friend Shino into a coma. In 2006, CyberConnect2 and Bee Train produced two new series. Bee Train also produced an anime series focused on a player named Tsukasa who has no memories of his identity outside of the game and cannot leave The World. The first four video games follow a newcomer named Kite who goes on a quest to revive his comatose friend who fell into a coma after his character was killed by an unknown creature.

As most of the story takes place within The World, characters typically interact as their avatars. Central to the premise is a mystery about the wildly popular in-universe MMORPG The World. The franchise is set on an alternate history Earth, where a new version of the Internet arises following a major global computer network disaster in 2005.


hack Conglomerate are part of a Japanese multimedia franchise primarily developed by CyberConnect2, and published by Bandai. In the top: Orca, Balmung, Ova, Atoli and Fluegel. In the middle row: BlackRose, Tsukasa and Subaru. hack//Link featuring most of the series' leads as seen in the bottom from left to right: Kite, Tokio and Haseo, Tsukasa.
