The Great Deception

The Great Deception (一つの壮大なペテン) was a tagline used in interviews with the creators of .hack to describe a major plot twist in the .hack Conglomerate series involving the real identity of Tri-Edge. The claim was that the deception had been carried out from the very beginning of the series, and that once the revelation was made, some players might stop playing, and some might even send death threats to the director.

The Nature of the Deception
The "deception" spoken of by the creators was the fact that Azure Kite, called "Tri-Edge" since the very first trailer was unveiled, isn't actually the legendary PK Tri-Edge, who was in fact a certain character.