Hanako: Honor & Blade interview - Overwatch meets Smite in Feudal Japan

We caught up with the co-founder of +MPact Games to learn more about Hanako: Honor & Blade.

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Hanako: Honor & Blade is a new online beat’em up from +MPact Games. Set in Feudal Japan, up to 24 players face off in melee combat, with a variety of weapons and abilities in their arsenal. Following its recent launch, we sat down with the co-founder of +MPact Games in order to learn more about the development of Hanako: Honor & Blade.

Greg Burke, our head of video here at Shacknews sat down with Matt Canei, co-founder of +MPact Games to talk in depth about Hanako: Honor & Blade. In the interview, the two talk about how Hanako: Honor & Blade originally started as a college project over a decade ago. “+MPact Games is a tiny indie studio that myself and my two partners started back in college. We kind of created it around Hanako, which was a college project that started way back in 2008.” While the game started as a very small-scale personal project, its success allowed the developers to branch off and expand on it.

Canei also talks about how he was inspired to make the game as a tribute to his mother after she passed away in 2007. “I was like, ‘alright I’m going to write this game, and it’s going to be a samurai war metaphor, where one clan represents her and the other represents the cancer that took her from me, and the who game is just going to be a metaphor for that battle.’” Canei explains that a lot of the game came from him trying to turn his grief into something positive.

The full interview with Matt Canei is a fascinating insight to the development of an incredibly personal project. It can be found over on the GamerHubTV YouTube channel, where you can check out more exclusive interviews with developers.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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