I just bought .Hack GU vol. 1 and I was wondering if I needed to play the old .Hack games in order to understand the story. I have already played Infection and Mutation so I know the first half of the older games’ story.
Eh… well, no, not really. There are several references to the previous games, especially in Redemption, and some of the are somewhat important, but the blunt of the story is fine on it’s own.
You’ll miss a lot of jokes though.