# Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami is a 2012 top-down shooter game developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital. Set in Miami in 1989, the game follows an unnamed silent protagonist—dubbed Jacket by fans—as he commits massacres against the local Russian mafia. Throughout the game, he is interrogated for his actions and slowly loses his grip on reality. In each level, the player must defeat every enemy through any means necessary. Before each level, the player can choose one of several masks that offer unique abilities.
The game was the first commercial release of Dennaton Games, a duo composed of developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin. Using a scrapped prototype Söderström made years prior, they developed Hotline Miami over the course of nine months. Söderström programmed the game and wrote the narrative, while Wedin designed the graphics. Several artists contributed to the soundtrack, which combines many music styles. The game was released in October 2012 for Windows, followed by versions for OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita in 2013, and a PlayStation 4 port in 2014.
Hotline Miami received generally positive reviews from critics, who highlighted its gameplay, soundtrack, and atmosphere, though some criticized its controls. The game's themes and storytelling, which advocate an anti-violence message, were also praised. It was nominated for several awards and was a commercial success, selling 1.5 million copies by May 2015. Hotline Miami has been considered one of the most influential and successful indie games to be released, with its success inspiring many developers and contributing to a rise in indie game releases throughout the 2010s; it also contributed to the success of its publisher. It has been frequently considered one of the best video games ever made, and to have one of the best video game soundtracks.
A sequel, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, was released in March 2015. Both games were re-released as part of the Hotline Miami: Collected Edition in Japan that same year. Another compilation, the Hotline Miami Collection, released for Nintendo Switch in August 2019, and was later ported to Xbox One, Stadia, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The series has also spawned a comic book spinoff and several fan games.

## Gameplay

Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter game. It is set in Miami during the late 1980s, and is divided into nineteen "chapters". At the beginning of each chapter, the player character "Jacket" receives a message on his answering machine, instructing him to travel to a different part of Miami and kill all enemies at that location. The player is able to defeat their opponents through a variety of melee and ranged weapons, like crowbars and firearms. The player can also knock out enemies with a door, use them as a human shield, or kick them against the wall. If an enemy is not immediately killed in an attack, the player can perform a specialized attack to finish them off. Later stages have the player take control of a different character, known as the Biker, who can only use knives.
The player and enemies can both be felled by a single attack each. To compensate, the player is able to quickly restart the current stage after death, allowing them to rethink their strategy. Different types of enemies appear, such as dogs and boss characters. The enemy AI is inconsistent, with reactions to attacks ranging from responding immediately to doing nothing. The player is awarded points for each enemy they kill, with bonus points awarded based on the method of execution or the number of enemies killed in quick succession. The player has the ability to lock onto an enemy and not have to aim. On the PlayStation Vita, the functions of the mouse, including aiming, are shifted over to the touch screen, with locking onto enemies requiring the player to touch them on-screen.
Before each chapter begins, the player can choose from a variety of animal masks to wear, which grant different abilities. These attributes include the player's finishing moves being sped up and allowing them to see further. At the end of each chapter, the player's total score is tallied and they are given a rating based on their performance. The player's score is further adjusted based on their play style, which is given a classification like "coward" or "sadist". High scores unlock new masks and weapons for the player to use. Achievements are obtained by doing specific challenges such as killing two enemies by throwing one brick at them.

## Plot

In April 1989, Jacket receives a message on his answering machine and a package is delivered to his door containing a rooster mask. The package contains instructions advising Jacket to retrieve a briefcase from the Russian mafia at a metro station. After carrying out the mission, Jacket continues to receive messages instructing him to conduct more massacres. After each mission, Jacket visits a store or a restaurant where a man known as Beard meets him and gives away free items such as pizza, films, and alcoholic beverages. During an assault on the estate of a film producer, Jacket rescues a girl and takes her to his apartment, nursing her back to good health and developing a romantic relationship with her. After this assault, Jacket is visited by three masked personas: Richard, Rasmus, and Don Juan, who question him for his actions. These encounters continue throughout the game. In another assault on a phone company, Jacket finds everybody dead except the Biker, who is attempting to access a computer, and the two fight to the death.
As Jacket continues his massacres, his perception of reality becomes increasingly more surreal. Talking corpses begin appearing at Beard's places of work, and eventually Beard himself abruptly dies, being replaced by a bald man named Richter that offers Jacket nothing. After coming home one night, Jacket discovers his girlfriend murdered by Richter, who shoots Jacket and places him into a coma. In one final encounter, Richard tells Jacket that he will "never see the full picture". Richard then reveals to Jacket that he was reliving the events of the past two months while comatose after being shot. After waking up, Jacket overhears that Richter has been arrested, and escapes the hospital in search of him. He storms Miami police headquarters, killing almost everyone inside and confronts Richter, who he discovered had also been receiving messages. Jacket spares his life and steals the file on the police investigations of the killings before heading to a nightclub to where the calls were tracked, killing everyone there as well. He then goes to the Russian Mafia headquarters and confronts both leaders of the syndicate. After Jacket injures him and kills his personal bodyguard, one of the leaders "spares him the pleasure" and commits suicide. When Jacket confronts the other, he contemplates the things he did and allows Jacket to kill him without resistance. Afterwards, Jacket walks out onto a balcony and lights a cigarette, and throws a photo off of the balcony.
After completing the levels centered around Jacket, the player unlocks an epilogue centered around the Biker. Similarly to Jacket, the Biker has been receiving messages on his answering machine, and is dedicated to find their source. After the encounter with Jacket depicted earlier and various interrogations, he finds the source of the messages to be 50 Blessings, a group operated by two janitors that attempt to undermine an "anti-American" alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States by telling their operatives to massacre Russians. The game features two endings, with the full ending requiring the player to find puzzle pieces scattered throughout the game to crack 50 Blessings' password. If the player cracks the password, the Biker uncovers their secrets and political agenda. Without the password, the Biker is mocked and fails to discover the truth. In both endings, the player has the option to either kill or spare the janitors. After this, the Biker departs from Miami.

## Development

Hotline Miami was developed by Dennaton Games, a duo composed of designer and programmer Jonatan Söderström and artist Dennis Wedin. Söderström had previously developed numerous freeware indie games, such as the puzzle game Tuning, which won the Nuovo Award at the Independent Games Festival in 2010. Many of his projects developed around this time were never completed. Among these was a top-down shooter game called Super Carnage, where the goal was to kill as many people as possible. He began work on the project in 2004 at the age of 18, but later abandoned the project after facing difficulties with developing the AI.
Years later, Söderström met Wedin, a singer and keyboard player for synthpunk band Fucking Werewolf Asso. The two collaborated in making a promotional game for the band, titled Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf, as well as a separate project named Life/Death/Island. The latter became too much work for them to handle, and the project was abandoned. The failure of the project led to the duo facing financial difficulties, resulting in them wanting their next project to be a commercial release. Wedin began searching through Söderström's unfinished works, and came across Super Carnage. With Wedin seeing potential in the concept after previously playing similar games like Gauntlet (1985) and Chaos Engine (1993), the two began developing Hotline Miami. The game was originally titled Cocaine Cowboy, named after the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Throughout development, Söderström posted updates on his Twitter account and blog.
The first playable version was created within the first week of development after Söderström assembled the basics of the game, including a temporary soundtrack. Although it was initially planned as a smaller project, it expanded after development studio Vlambeer shared a demo with Devolver Digital, who offered to publish it. It was developed using the GameMaker engine over the course of nine months, with the developers working twelve hours a day, six days a week. Uncertain of whether they would be successful, and working with little to no budget, the team lost and regained motivation repeatedly. In an interview with Edge, Wedin described the development as "fucking hard". At one point, Wedin was hospitalized for two weeks due to depression caused by a breakup. The version of GameMaker the team was using was outdated, causing compatibility issues with newer operating systems. As a result, Dennaton faced numerous problems, including many bizarre bugs reported by playtesters. Among these bugs was one that would cause the game to crash if certain printers were plugged into the player's computer.

### Design

In a 2022 interview with Noclip, Wedin stated that they designed Hotline Miami as a game that they wanted to play, initially being unconcerned with what an average consumer or a critic would think of it. According to him and Söderström, this design process allowed the team to determine what would "fit" the game or be liked by other players, based on whether or not they personally found it fun. In the same interview, the team said they designed the game as an "arcade game first, and a reality simulator second". When designing the AI, the team were conflicted about whether to make it more "believable" or to intentionally make it varied in behavior, but eventually chose the latter. Wedin later stated that they "never wanted to do realistic behavior", and Söderström partially attributed the limitations of GameMaker to the varied behavior of enemies. Some of the mechanics, such as the ability to throw weapons at enemies, were initially coding errors that were turned into proper game mechanics. The levels featuring the Biker were created near the end of development.
The plot was inspired by several movies that the team watched before starting development. Among these movies were the works of David Lynch, the superhero comedy film Kick-Ass, the Cocaine Cowboys documentary, and Drive. Drive inspired the minimal dialogue and critique of violence, leading to the creation of the masked personas and their associated scenes. In a June 2012 post on his personal blog, Söderström said that he wanted the project to have an interesting, but "unintrusive" story that players could skip through if they wanted. Another inspiration was Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist of the Half-Life series. Söderström said that Lynch's works were the largest influence. Some of the characters were based on real people, with Beard being based on artist Niklas Åkerblad, a friend of the developers and owner of the apartment in which the two worked, and the janitors being the developers' self-inserts.
The graphics were created by Wedin, using pixel art with a high-contrast colour palette. The first assets, a player sprite and an enemy sprite, were created by Wedin during a weekend within the first few days of development. While the team felt the violence could cause controversy, they believed the decision to use pixel art would mitigate any problems. Wedin stated that, while he thought games that used realistic 3D graphics were often singled out when a real-world attack took place, Hotline Miami's graphics kept it "out of the spotlight." When looking for artists to design the box art, the team initially looked for artists who had worked on older horror films. When they were unable to agree on who should design it, Åkerblad offered to create the box art himself, and made it in about three days.

### Music

Creating Hotline Miami's soundtrack was a focus of the developers, with both developers viewing it as an important element. Their goal was to create a soundtrack that did not "sound like game music", but instead sounded like a film soundtrack. After failing to obtain the licenses for a temporary soundtrack they put together early in development, the team began searching Bandcamp for tracks that were free to download; according to Söderström, the team listened to up to two thousand tracks. Some artists, such as M.O.O.N., were found through this process, while another artist, Scattle, contacted Dennaton themselves after seeing blog posts of the development. Tracks from M.O.O.N. were directly added to the game, while Scattle was tasked with composing original music specifically for the game using Renoise. Other artists featured in the game include Coconuts, Sun Araw, Perturbator, and Åkerblad. The final soundtrack consists of 22 tracks of several different styles, ranging from those that primarily use bass and drums like "Hydrogen", to more up-beat pop tracks such as "Miami Disco" by Perturbator.

## Release

Hotline Miami was first announced through Söderström's personal blog on 3 July 2012. A teaser trailer was also released at the same time. It was later showcased at the A Maze Indie Connect festival, and again later at a Rezzed exposition in Brighton. The reception at A Maze was mixed, but it was later praised by attendees at Rezzed. It was most played game at Rezzed that year, and won the Game Of The Show award; Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer described the game as the "best example of the sort of game we invented the show for." For the game's promotion, Dennaton purchased a phone number in the Miami area that allowed people to leave messages that would later be used in a trailer. Hotline Miami was released on Steam on 23 October 2012. Versions with support for MacOS and Linux were released on 19 March 2013 and 9 September 2013, respectively.
In November 2012, an update was released that patched numerous bugs, added support for gamepads, and made minor graphical and gameplay adjustments. This update also added a bonus level, "Highball", which has no relation to any other level. Around this time, Söderström created numerous patches for pirated versions of Hotline Miami after several users of the Pirate Bay reported problems. He wanted players to "experience the game the way it's meant to be experienced", regardless of whether or not they obtained it through legitimate means. The soundtrack was released via Steam in January 2013. A physical release, with all of the tracks pressed across three vinyls, was released in 2016 through Laced Records. It was a limited release, with only 5,000 copies made, and was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $75,000.
Versions of Hotline Miami for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, ported by Abstraction Games, was released on 25 July 2013 in North America, and a day later in Europe. These releases supported cross-buy, allowing players who purchased the game on one platform to receive it on the other. These ports also added a bonus mask and leaderboards. A version for PlayStation 4, also supporting cross-buy, was released on 19 August 2014. A Japan-localized compilation, featuring Hotline Miami alongside its sequel Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015), titled Hotline Miami: Collected Edition, was released in June 2015. On 19 August 2019, Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2 were re-released as part of the Hotline Miami Collection for Nintendo Switch. The Hotline Miami Collection was later ported to Xbox One and Stadia on 7 April and 22 September 2020 respectively, and PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 23 October 2023.

## Reception

Aggregate score :
| Aggregator | Score |
| Metacritic | (PC) 85/100 (PS3) 87/100 (Vita) 85/100 |
Review scores :
| Publication | Score |
| Eurogamer | 10/10 |
| Game Informer | 7.75/10 |
| GameSpot | 8.5/10 |
| GamesRadar+ | 4/5 |
| IGN | 8.8/10 |
| PC Gamer (US) | 86/100 |
| Polygon | 8.5/10 |
| VideoGamer.com | 9/10 |
| PopMatters | 9/10 |
Hotline Miami received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator Metacritic, the game holds an aggregate score of 85 per cent based on 51 reviews for the PC version, 87 per cent based on 19 reviews for the PlayStation 3 version, and 85 per cent based on 27 reviews for the PlayStation Vita version.
Several reviewers praised the gameplay. Many found the game enjoyable, considering it addictive despite frequent death. Polygon's Chris Plante considered it similar to playing a sport, stating that it compensated for being repetitive by allowing the player to restart quickly, and found it addictive. Graham Smith of PC Gamer wrote that the game was designed to "inspire a fever" and that "once you're hooked, it's easy to get carried away". He also wrote that, even when putting the addictive nature aside, it was still "tight" and "efficient". Phill Cameron of VideoGamer.com described the game as "five seconds of action that you can lose yourself in for five hours." Danny O'Dwyer of GameSpot was indifferent, though he wrote that the times Hotline Miami did "get it wrong" were "deeply frustrating". He pointed out the boss fights, which he felt had arbitrary methods on how to defeat them.
Some criticisms were made towards Hotline Miami's controls, with Ben Reeves of Game Informer writing that the controls inhibited what was otherwise "one of the most creative indie titles of the year." Eric Swain of PopMatters felt that the PlayStation 3 controls made the game easier, and consequentially made players "miss out" on the intended feel. Giancarlo Saldana of GamesRadar+ felt that the controls on the PlayStation 3 took some time to get used to, and that playing it on computer was more ideal, but that players could get used to them.
Hotline Miami's narrative was well received, with Reeves describing it as "perfectly [placing] you inside the mind of a serial killer." Saldana described it as an "introspective journey into the violence of video games", and that it had a "daring narrative style" that gained the attention of players. Plante wrote that game had "more to say about our fascination with violence" than other titles, describing Hotline Miami as an exceptional game not due to its violence, but because it had a "reason" to be violent. While Smith felt that the narrative was lacking in depth and no justification was given for the violence, he believed that too many other video games offered clichéd reasons for violence, and described it as a "relief". Cameron wrote that the game missed an "opportunity to make a point" and never properly explained why so many people were being killed, instead allowing the player to reflect on themselves. The visual design was also well received, often being discussed alongside Hotline Miami's narrative and sound design.
The soundtrack was praised, with several critics highlighting it as one of the best aspects. Reeves described the soundtrack as doing a "phenomenal job", and Saldana felt that it was "executed perfectly". O'Dwyer described it as "outstanding" and fitting well with the visual design, believing that both combined were able to allow the player to look past the flaws. Charles Onyett of IGN wrote that the soundtrack "[meshes] perfectly" with the rest of the game. Eurogamer's Tom Brawell shared similar thoughts as O'Dwyer and Onyett, feeling that while the soundtrack was less impactful on its own, it tied in well with the other elements.

### Sales

Hotline Miami sold over 130,000 units within the first seven weeks of its initial release. By the time the PlayStation 3 version was announced in February 2013, it had sold 300,000 units. According to Anthony John Agnello of Digital Trends, the commercial success up to that point was the reason Sony wanted Hotline Miami on the platform, helping the company "maintain its reputation" as a "purveyor" of indie titles after the success of Journey. When Hotline Miami was released on PlayStation Vita, it became the platform's best selling game of June 2013 within six days, despite releasing near the end of the month. By May 2015, Hotline Miami had sold over 1.5 million units on all platforms.

### Awards

A month before release, Hotline Miami won the "Most Fantastic" award at the 2012 Fantastic Arcade festival in Austin. At the end of the year, Hotline Miami was nominated for several awards by IGN. These included "Best Overall Game", "Best PC Action Game", "Best PC Story", "Best PC Game", "Best Overall Action Game", and "Best Overall Music". It won the award for "Best PC Sound". PC Gamer gave Hotline Miami its "The Best Music of the Year 2012" award. At the 2012 Machinima's Inside Gaming Awards, it received the "Most Original Game" award. It was nominated for several awards at the Independent Games Festival in 2013, including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, as well as the Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Design awards. Several publications considered Hotline Miami to be one of the best games released in 2012. These publications include Kill Screen, Paste, Ars Technica, Wired, The Guardian, and VentureBeat.

## Themes and analysis

Hotline Miami advocates an anti-violence message throughout, making the player feel guilt for their in-game massacres. Some found this to be done through the utilization of upbeat music and its score system to motivate the player. As the game is fast-paced, the player may enter a state where they're focused exclusively on their inputs and become desensitized to their actions. Pitchfork's Nina Corcoran said that the upbeat soundtrack contributed to this by ratcheting the player's anxiety and increasing their focus, while also desensitizing them to the glorified violence. At the end of each level, the upbeat music is replaced with ambience while the player exits the building, with the remains of enemies scattered across the floor. NME's Dom Peppiatt compared Hotline Miami's anti-violence commentary to be similar to A Clockwork Orange and American Psycho. He wrote that the game made players think about where the "line between fiction and reality blurs", and made them reconsider the violence present within video games as a whole.
Each of the masked personas serve a specific purpose in their encounters. Richard is often inquisitive, Don Juan is generally passive and friendly, while Rasmus is aggressive. They also each have a unique color assigned to them reflecting their personality, with Richard's being yellow, Don Juan's being blue, and Rasmus' being red. Each interrogates the player uniquely; Don Juan's dialogue includes lines like "knowing oneself means acknowledging one's actions," while Richard is more upfront, asking "do you like hurting other people?" Additionally, the masked figures never reveal any details about the identity of Jacket, instead teasing the player directly. The masked figures also foreshadow events in the narrative, such as hinting at the murder of Jacket's girlfriend.
Luca Papale and Lorenzo Fazio suggested that the contrasting behaviors of the masked figures may represent dissociative identity disorder in Jacket. Similar thoughts were written by Marco Caracciolo of the University of Groningen, who said that the masked personas could possibly be "projections of Jacket's disturbed psyche." He additionally wrote that the plot is "destined not to make any sense", citing the behavior of the masked figures as well as the contradictions between the perspectives of Jacket and the Biker. Papale and Fazio considered Jacket to be the first example of a "meta-avatar", a type of character with the ability to cause players to rethink their own actions and cause instability within their identity. This type of character was compared by Papale and Fazio to Doomguy from the DOOM series and Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series, who were seen as examples of "mask digital prosthesis", referring to the overlapping of identities between a player and a game's protagonist.

## Legacy

Retrospective commentary has considered Hotline Miami to be one of the most influential indie games, as well as one of the most critically and financially successful. Its success inspired many to begin developing video games, contributing to an increase in indie game releases throughout the 2010s. Many of these games include similar narrative themes, gameplay mechanics, or soundtracks to Hotline Miami. Games influenced by Hotline Miami continued to be made over a decade after its release, ranging from indie games to ones made by larger, big-budget studios like The Last of Us Part II. The soundtrack has also been influential, helping popularize the synthwave music genre and leading to the mainstream success of the artists involved. The game contributed to the success of Devolver Digital, which has since become one of the most successful indie game publishers.
Hotline Miami's narrative and handling of violence have been considered by many journalists to be influential within the video game industry, with an impact lasting into the 2020s. In a 2019 retrospective article from Vice's Cameron Kunzelman, he described Hotline Miami's anti-violence themes as an "emblem of a forgotten regime" alongside other games released at the time like Spec Ops: The Line. He felt that since Hotline Miami's release, more video games had started treating violence as a method of demonstrating "seriousness" without a proper justification. He specifically highlighted a trailer for The Last of Us Part II, as well as how some of Hotline Miami's more serious dialogue had become internet memes. He also said that video games were due for "another shift" in how to treat violence. Chris Tapsell of Eurogamer echoed similar thoughts as Kunzelman in 2024, describing Hotline Miami as the video game industry's "coming-of-age moment" and a point of self-reflection.
In 2023, The Verge's Aleksha McLoughli described Hotline Miami as the "gold standard" for an indie game. He said it was the best in its sub-genre, with no other games being able to compare to its success. Nina Corcoran of Pitchfork shared similar thoughts, and stated that the game was designed by Dennaton to be "incredibly replayable" several years later. In a 2022 article published by The Ringer, Lewis Gordon described Hotline Miami as a game that "[stretched] the boundaries" of the video game industry, as one of the more "warmly-regarded" indie games. Christopher Cruz of Rolling Stone described Hotline Miami as a "titan of indie gaming", one with an "impact [that] has reached far and wide". The game has also garnered a cult following.
In the years since its release, Hotline Miami has often been considered to be one of the best video games ever made by the editorial teams of several magazines and media outlets. These include the teams of GamesRadar+, Slant Magazine, Hardcore Gaming 101, Stuff.tv, Popular Mechanics, GamesTM, USA Today, and Sports Illustrated. The game was considered one of the best PC games by the editorial teams of PC Gamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and one of the best PlayStation Vita games by Digital Trends and GamesRadar+. It was also listed in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. Its soundtrack has received similar praise, with writers from Paste, GameSpot, PCMag and VG247 considering Hotline Miami's soundtrack to be one of the best from a video game.

### Sequel and franchise

Shortly after the games release, Dennaton began developing downloadable content to expand upon its story and add a level editor. When the proposed length of the project surpassed that of the main game, it became its own standalone game. Announced ten days after the release of Hotline Miami, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was released on 10 March 2015. The game expanded upon the universe of the original, introducing new characters and focusing on the background and aftermath of Jacket's massacres. It also served as the conclusion of the series' story. Due to differences in gameplay and level design, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was not received as well as the first game. Both games were included in the Hotline Miami Collection, which was first released in August 2019. As of 2022, both games in the series have sold over five million units combined across several platforms.
In 2016, an eight-part comic book series based on the series, Hotline Miami: Wildlife, was announced. It was released digitally over the course of several months and follows a protagonist named Chris, depicting events not considered canon to the main Hotline Miami story. A parody, "Hotline Milwaukee", is included in Devolver Bootleg, a 2019 compilation of parodies of numerous games published by Devolver Digital. Jacket has appeared as a playable character in other games, such as Payday 2 and Dead Cells. Several fan games based on the series have been created, often incorporating elements from other games such as Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life. Among these was Midnight Animal, a fan game that would have incorporated elements from the Persona series, but was cancelled by 2019.