Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a 2015 top-down shooter video game co-developed by Dennaton Games and Abstraction Games, and published by Devolver Digital. It takes place before, during, and after the events of Hotline Miami focusing on the backstory and aftermath of Jacket's massacres against the Russian mafia in Miami. The events are told from the perspective of several different characters in numerous locations.
The game was originally conceived as downloadable content for the original game following its commercial success, though planning was turned into a standalone sequel within ten days. It was formally announced at E3 2013 and released worldwide for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows on 10 March 2015. A localized version released in Japan on June 25, as part of Hotline Miami: Collected Edition. An Android port was released on August 4 of the same year.
The game received a generally positive response from critics, though various aspects were divisive. The soundtrack received critical acclaim, while the narrative and changes to gameplay and level design received a mixed response. A scene depicting sexual assault triggered largely negative feedback from critics, as well as causing the game to be refused classification in Australia. The game was ported onto Nintendo Switch alongside the first game in the Hotline Miami Collection in 2019, which was later ported onto the Xbox One and Stadia in 2020 and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2023.
Gameplay
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number plays similarly to its predecessor, Hotline Miami, and is divided into several chapters, each of which is further broken down into several stages. Each chapter is played from a top-down perspective and the objective in most chapters is to defeat every enemy. Each stage has a varied design, typically having large open rooms with many different ways for enemies to approach the player. Most chapters have the player take control of a different character, with the game having thirteen playable characters in total. New mechanics such as dodging and dual wielding are available to certain characters, and the masks mechanic returns for certain characters as well. Some characters have the ability to choose weapons at the start instead of masks, may function as a group of characters for the player to choose from, or will defeat opponents non-lethally.
Both the player and enemies are not resilient, and it may take only one attack from a weapon to kill either immediately. To make up for this, the player is able to quickly restart the current stage after death, allowing the player to rethink and fine-tune their strategy until success. The enemy AI, similarly to the previous game, is unpredictable and will respond arbitrarily. Different enemy types appear as the game progress, such as guard dogs immune to melee attacks, thugs that are immune to everything except bullets, and samurai capable of dodging bullets. The enemy variety in use and the differences in level design can different combat scenarios for the player to overcome. At the end of each stage, the player is given a final score and a letter grade based on their performance, with higher scores allowing the player to unlock more playable characters and weapons. Upon completion of the game, "Hard Mode" is unlocked for levels the player achieved a rank of C+ or higher in. In Hard Mode, enemies are more difficult to take down, weapons have reduced ammo, and abilities such as locking on enemies are restricted.
Exclusively for the versions released on Steam (service), a level editor is included within the game, allowing players to create their own stages. Additional tools are provided such as cutscene and dialog editing, which furthermore can allow players to create their own campaigns. Players can then choose to share their creations onto the Steam Workshop service, where players are able to download and play creations from others.
Synopsis
Characters and setting
The plot of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is told in an anachronistic order during, before, and after the events of the original, focusing on events in 1985, 1989, and 1991. Following the events of Hotline Miami, the player character, "Jacket", has been arrested after being manipulated into killing off the leadership of the Russian Mafia by 50 Blessings, a neo-nationalist terror cell that masquerades as a peaceful activist group, gaining nationwide infamy.
The game follows several playable characters in a series of intersecting plotlines exploring both the background and the aftermath of Jacket's rampage: Martin Brown, a sadistic actor who uses his role in the film Midnight Animal to live out his violent fantasies; The Fans, a group of copycat killers seeking to emulate Jacket; Evan Wright, a journalist who seeks to write a book about the killings; Manny Pardo, a detective who mainly uses violence to dispatch criminals; "Beard", the basis of the shopkeeper from Jacket's hallucinations in the first game who is part of a commando squad with Jacket in Hawaii; the Son of the Russian Mafia boss of the first game, who seeks to return the Russians to power against the Colombian Cartel; The Henchman, who seeks to retire from the Mafia; Jake, an obese, violent, and nativist member of 50 Blessings, and Richter, a reluctant operative of 50 Blessings who was threatened into committing the murders, both of whom were active alongside Jacket in 1989.
Furthermore, "Richard", a mysterious figure in a rooster mask that occasionally appeared to Jacket in the original game, appears at different points to most of the game's playable characters, taunting and criticizing them for their actions throughout the game.
Plot
In 1985, the United States and the Soviet Union are at war, and Beard and his squad are conducting special operations against Soviet forces in Hawaii. As the war proceeds, their psychologically troubled Colonel begins losing his grip on reality, volunteering them for increasingly desperate and dangerous missions while ruminating on their impending deaths and the loss of the war. Their last assignment involves besieging a heavily guarded power plant controlled by the Soviets. As they make their way into the building, their Colonel - apparently insane - murders the plant's technicians and begins a meltdown on the main reactor before committing suicide. A booby trap explodes and severely injures two members of their unit, including Jacket, but Beard manages to save his life. The two are sent home, but a year later, a nuclear missile is fired at San Francisco, winning the war for the Soviets' and killing Beard.
In 1989, Jake and Richter are sent on missions parallel to Jacket's. Jake realizes the officially-peaceful 50 Blessings organization has been the one giving him orders all along when he meets with one of their representatives, who denies everything. Afterwards, he is sent on a suicide mission, but fails and is captured, tortured, and eventually killed by the Russian Mafia. Richter is reluctant to work with 50 Blessings until they threaten his ailing mother. He is eventually captured and imprisoned, but manages to escape during a prison riot orchestrated by 50 Blessings to kill him to prevent him from corroborating Jacket's testimony.
In 1991, Jacket undergoes trial for the mass murders he perpetrated. The trials are widely publicized, resulting in the creation of a film depicting Jacket as "The Pig Butcher", as well as journalist Evan Wright writing a book on the killings while trying to learn more about the events at the cost of his marriage and finances being strained. Evan is given leads by his friend Manny Pardo, a police detective who uses his position to go on killing sprees during stakeout operations, justifying them as self-defense. Richter also shares his story with Evan in exchange for plane tickets for his mother to come to Hawaii. The aforementioned film's star, Martin Brown, dies when he is accidentally shot by an actress with live ammunition on set of the film's final scene. Inspired by Jacket's killings, the Fans carry out a string of murders against petty crooks and drug dealers, unaware of the larger context of Jacket's campaign of violence. Eventually they kill a former henchman of the Russian mafia, and when his boss attempts to reconnect, the Fans track down the call's origins and begin an attack. They are all killed during this attack, except Tony, who is personally killed by Pardo to deny him his "fifteen minutes of fame" for attempting to surrender. Following this, Pardo has a nightmare wherein he is outed as the "Miami Mutilator", a serial killer he has seemingly been after to attain fame similar to Jacket, and barricades himself in his home.
Meanwhile, the Son is trying to reclaim his father's empire from Colombian gangsters who filled the power vacuum left by his father's death. After the Colombians are defeated, he invites his old henchman to visit their new hideout, inadvertently giving away his location to the Fans and triggering the attack depicted earlier. Under the influence of his own designer drugs, the Son goes on a rampage, killing his own men in addition to the otherworldly monsters he interprets the Fans as before walking off the roof on a rainbow bridge to his death. After the attacks, Richter and his mother in Hawaii hear news of the assassination of the American and Soviet presidents in an attempted coup d'état. Due to the attack allegedly being committed by an American general, the Soviets declare war on the United States, launching several nuclear attacks that obliterate Miami and Hawaii. Richard appears one final time, expressing that "leaving this world is not as scary as it sounds". In their final moments, Manny Pardo points a gun at his barricaded door while drunk, Evan either works on his book or eats with his family depending on the player's actions, the actress from Midnight Animal drinks in her bedroom, and finally Jacket sits alone in a prison cell - before they are each obliterated by the bombs. Starting a new game afterwards adds an extra introductory cutscene where Richard berates the playable characters for, once again, starting down a path that can only end in their deaths.
Development
Shortly after the release of the original Hotline Miami, Dennaton Games began looking into the idea of downloadable content to expand the story of the game, while also clarifying that the game was financially successful enough to fund a new project. This downloadable content was set to be as long as the base game, and would feature new playable characters and a level editor. As the downloadable content's proposed length surpassed that of the original game, it was converted into a full-fledged sequel. Ten days after the announcement of planned downloadable content, Hotline Miami 2 was officially announced to be in production through Jonatan Söderström's Twitter, and that a preliminary soundtrack for the game was already completed, though the developers were still focused on patching the original game. Similarly to the predecessor, the sequel was made in Game Maker 7, though Abstraction Games ported the game to their own SilverWare engine using their Game Maker conversion program GameBaker to allow the game to run on consoles, replacing the Phyre Engine used for the first game.
The game was created with the fans of the original game in mind. The team was not concerned with attracting a larger audience and instead prioritised "making a game for us and people who liked the first one." Making the universe of Hotline Miami more "fleshed out" was the priority, with thirteen new playable characters being created by the developers, each with their own stories and motivations as making the characters like "Jacket" from the first game would've made them "all be bland" in the words of Söderström. With these new characters, the game was constructed to be the franchise finale, with the developers including every concept and idea they had for the series.
The preliminary soundtrack for Hotline Miami 2 was the first aspect of the game to be completed, less than a month after the release of the first game. The success of Hotline Miami was noted to lead to the success of the artists behind the game's soundtrack, leading artists to scramble to send their music to Dennaton Games to try and get their music in the sequel. By the time the slots for the full soundtrack of Hotline Miami 2 were finalized, roughly 200 songs from various artists were sent to Dennaton, only of which a few were used alongside tracks they found themselves, resulting in a final soundtrack of around fifty total pieces. Music from artists such as M.O.O.N. and Jasper Byrne, whom had tracks in the first game, were included alongside music from newcomers such as Carpenter Brut and Castanets, whose song "You Are The Blood" was used in the game's ending cutscene.
Marketing and release
The game was formally announced during E3 2013 under the title Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number with a planned release date of late 2013. It was announced here that the game would be the last in the series, and a gameplay showcase followed in a trailer across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center. The game received numerous delays and failed to release in late 2013, later pushed back to Q3 2014. A trailer during E3 2014 demonstrated the game's level editor. On 16 August 2014, an anonymous poster on 4chan's /v/ board going by the name HotlineBroVidya claimed to have the game, and proceeded to post multiple screenshots of the game, along with a list of song names, before streaming it. A day later, footage of this stream was uploaded to YouTube. This leak was validated as real by Devolver Digital themselves in the comments section of the video. The game was delayed once more in October 2014 to an unspecified time.
On 12 January 2015, a showcase track was unveiled from Magic Sword, titled "The Way Home" as a promotion for the game. A month later, the game was given an official release date slated for next month. Swedish artist Niklas Åkerblad created the cover art for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number featuring Beard, a character that was noted to be directly inspired by the artist. As part of a promotion, "Jacket" was added to Payday 2 as a playable character, included as a bonus for purchasing the digital special edition of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number on Steam. A mask pack was included in the game for both the standard and digital special editions. A collector's edition of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number was also announced, featuring the game's soundtrack on vinyl as well as a digital download code for the game.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number released on 10 March 2015 for Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. A community made patch gave the game Windows XP support on 16 March 2015. A Japan-localized compilation featuring the game alongside the original Hotline Miami, titled Hotline Miami: Collected Edition, was released on 25 June 2015. After previously being in alpha since release of the base game, a level editor released on 22 June 2016 exclusively on computer platforms, with Dennaton jokingly telling players to create their own "Hotline Miami 3". Around seven hundred levels and one hundred campaigns were published on the Steam Workshop on the day of the level editors release. On 19 August 2019, the game alongside the original Hotline Miami was rereleased as part of the Hotline Miami Collection for Nintendo Switch. The Hotline Miami Collection was later ported to Xbox One on 7 April 2020, Stadia on 22 September 2020, and PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 23 October 2023.
Reception
Critical response
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number received generally positive reviews from critics, though it was received lower overall than the first game. On Metacritic, it holds an aggregated score of 74 per cent based on 67 reviews for the PC version, 75 per cent based on 18 reviews for the PlayStation 4 Version, and 66 per cent based on four reviews for the PlayStation Vita version.
The gameplay received a mixed response from critics, with it being considered that the ambition of the narrative had rubbed onto the gameplay, resulting in generally larger and more challenging levels. These larger levels were reported by Alex Carlson of Hardcore Gamer as making levels feel more "realistic in architecture" and as "delivering a more diverse stage design." While praising the take on the narrative, Burns of VideoGamer felt that the game's ambition "didn't work as well mechanically" and fell to the "bigger is better" trope, criticizing it for not giving as much room to "tailor your style" like in the first game and instead being reliant on the character being used. These unique different characters were however praised by Chloi Rad of IGN, positively viewing the unique ideas between different characters such as those who use pacifism as "a shocking twist for Hotline Miami", and calling the unique aspects of certain characters and more restraints overall as a trade-off between "arcade-like aspects and a more fully fleshed-out story." In the opposite of the analogy from IGN, Myers of Paste noted that the gameplay made him "feel disgusted and angry", believing the level design to not have a smooth difficulty curve and throwing the player right into difficult scenarios, comparing the game to that of a "pathetic cash-in on an idea that only worked once and couldn’t possibly work again" and referring to it as a "glorified DLC pack of new levels" specifically made for people who "like rape and torture."
The game's narrative were noted for being far more elaborate than in the first game. Recalling a scene in the original Hotline Miami where the player is asked if they "like hurting other people", McElroy of Polygon described Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number as expecting an answer to that question. The narrative was described as Dennaton "expertly conjuring a deeply unsettling world" by Steven Burns of VideoGamer. On the contrary, Chris Thurster of PC Gamer criticized the game's narrative, questioning if the series needed lore or if the events leading up to the first game needed any elaboration. Tony Coles of Eurogamer was conflicted on the game's narrative, believing it to be an expected sequel, but was unsure if it was one that the original game deserved. The game was described as a "bad hangover that I woke up with the following day" by Maddy Myers of Paste, criticizing the constant swapping of characters for making the story hard to follow, as well as making it hard for them to resonate with the characters. Furthermore, Alec Meer of Rock Paper Shotgun described the game's story as nothing more than a "disordered jumble of post-it note scribbles".
The game's ending was described as Adam Smith (also of Rock Paper Shotgun) to be a "gorgeous ending" that caused the player to experience hallucinations and regret over their actions, but wasn't confident about it being the ending the story and characters "truly earned." McElroy of Polygon described it as "the craziest, most audacious ending" they had ever seen. In contrast to the confusion from fans and critics on the game's story, Dave Cook of Vice published an explanation of the events of the game a month after release, praising it for being a smart story that many people simply didn't understand and describing the ending as grim, shocking, and quite bold.
The game's soundtrack was acclaimed by critics, being considered just as good as the first game's and was overall the least controversial thing within the game. Referred to as "another powerful thing the game gets right" by Thurster of PC Gamer and as "your partner in flow-state induced crime" by Burns of VideoGamer. The game's soundtrack was the first thing brought up in the review from O'Dwyer's of GameSpot, describing it as "audiovisually seductive", and McElroy of Polygon wrote that the soundtrack was the "star of the show." Chris Carter of Destructoid described the music as being at the top of its game, being one of his favorite video game soundtracks in recent memory and praising the artists involved. Some tracks received additional praise for their specific use in game, with "Roller Mobster" being praised by Thurster of PC Gamer, and "You Are The Blood" being praised by Caty McCarthy of VG247 post-release in 2018, writing the usage of the song in the ending sequence to be "unforgettable".
Controversies
During the demo showing at Rezzed and the 2013 Penny Arcade Expo, a scene in the tutorial had players appear to attempt to assault a woman sexually as the Pig Butcher. In the scene, the player character lowered his pants and straddled the woman before it is interrupted by the director of Midnight Animal, revealing the whole sequence to be a film shoot. The scene was met with negative reception and as a result the scene was cut from the demo, with inclusion of the scene in the final game being reconsidered. Designer Dennis Wedin recalled that the team chose to cut the scene short to affirm that that type of violence is not what the Hotline Miami series is about. On 15 January 2015 it was reported that as a result of the scene, the game had been refused classification in Australia, prohibiting sale within the country and effectively banning the game. In an official statement from Devolver Digital and Dennaton Games, they mentioned that they have added a cut and uncut option for the slasher-flick level. Dennaton also reconfirmed that the context of the scene is important and that they were "concerned and disappointed" by the actions of the Australian Classification Board, stating it stretched the facts in its judgment of the game. The statement concluded with Dennaton confirming that they will not challenge the ruling, though later on suggested that fans in Australia should pirate it.
At the Rezzed 2013 Expo, Cara Ellison of PC Gamer wrote that the scene made her feel "betrayed by something she loved", uncomfortable with being placed into the identifying role of the Pig Butcher and criticizing the little to no agency that was given to the victim. Burns of VideoGamer described the scene as "merely existing for throwaway shock value", calling it a grave mistake in the game that didn't feature into the narrative. Thurster of PC Gamer questioned the inclusion of the scene for the same reasons as Burns, further describing it as "artless and alienating" and suggesting "a lack of confidence in the entire idea" due to the option to skip it. Myers of Paste was indifferent, criticizing the scene for giving "no narrative pay-off" and further mocking it by saying that the fact it was in an in-universe movie justified the player's actions. In contrast to other critics, Astrid Budgor of Kill Screen took into account what they viewed as the developers true intentions with the scene; to develop the narrative of the Pig Butcher and/or Martin Brown as a psychopath and positively viewing the option to skip the scene for those that find the topic sensitive.
Upon the release of the Nintendo Switch port with Hotline Miami Collection in August 2019, the game was briefly available to purchase on the eShop in Australia. According to Devolver, they had applied for an International Age Rating Coalition process for the collection as part of the requirement for publishing on the Switch. Though originally denied a rating, they successfully obtained the appropriate rating on a second submission. However within hours the title was pulled from the eShop, though Australian players who had already purchased the collection are still able to download and play the game. Its erroneous appearance on the Australian eShop was thought to be a mistake by Nintendo or related to a titling error with Devolver's IARC application for the collection.
References
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