is a playable character appearing in the 2016 video game Overwatch, a first-person shooter video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. Outside of Overwatch, Hanzo also appears in related media, which includes animated shorts and webcomics, as well as a playable character in the crossover multiplayer online game Heroes of the Storm. He appeared again in Overwatch 2, a 2022 sequel to the original game.
The character is Japanese and the eldest brother of fellow playable character, Genji. The two brothers belonged to the Shimada clan, a fictional Japanese crime family. In his backstory, Hanzo was forced by the clan's elders to kill Genji. The dutiful but heartbroken Hanzo subsequently denounced his family and fled Japan to travel the world, seeking redemption from the actions of his past. In-game, he is classified as a damage character with a high difficulty ranking. He is an archer whose abilities include firing rapid bursts of arrows to engage high priority targets and jumping forward, as well as revealing the location of enemy players.
Hanzo has been well received by critics and fans alike, with praise being directed towards his character arc involving his brother, design, and abilities. However, reviewers have also noted the character requires practice in order to be used effectively in the game.
Development and design
Originally, Hanzo and his brother Genji were created as a single cyborg-ninja character named Hanzo, who wielded both a bow and sword. Due to feeling that the character was too unfocused in design and had too many ninja elements attached to him, it was decided that the character would be split into two brothers, with Hanzo obtaining the bow, name and clothing of the original character. He was one of 12 Overwatch characters revealed at BlizzCon 2014. He was described as being lightly armored, scampering up walls using his bare hands and being able to spot enemies through obstacles.
Hanzo was named after Hattori Hanzō, one of the most famous samurai and ninja in Japanese history. Hattori was also known as "Demon Hanzo" because of his tactician abilities, which is what inspired Hanzo's "Demon" skin during the "Overwatch Halloween Terror" seasonal event in October. Hanzo and Genji's story arc was inspired by the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Michael Chu, lead writer of Overwatch, described Hanzo's storyline as "will-he, won't-he fall to darkness", and stated that Hanzo is "real interesting because he can be a hero and a villain depending on your point of view – I think he can be both at the same time. There are more things to investigate there." In the English version of the game, Hanzo is voiced by Paul Nakauchi.
When Overwatch was first released, Hanzo had two normal abilities, the "Sonic Arrow" that would briefly highlight any enemies in range of where it landed for all his allies, and the "Scatter Arrow" that would split into five separate arrows that would ricochet off walls from the point of impact. The Scatter Arrow was found by Blizzard and players to often be too powerful, able to take out tank characters with normally high damage in a single shot. This also made Hanzo effectively play as a second sniper character alongside Widowmaker, and made him a difficult character to integrate into cooperative play. As early as November 2017, Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team discussed looking at vamping Hanzo's kit to deal with this problem. After a period of testing on the Public Test Region from April 20, 2018, the new kit was introduced on May 3, 2018. This kit replaced the "Scatter Arrow" with "Storm Arrows", the ability to fire six full-powered shots in rapid succession, along with a mid-air dash move. Along with other buffs and debuffs to other attack skills, these changes were designed to bring Hanzo to be more a front-line character.