| Hotline Miami | |
| Developer: | Dennaton Games |
| Publisher: | Devolver Digital |
| Programmer: | Jonatan Söderström |
| Artist: | Dennis Wedin |
| Engine: | GameMaker |
| Genre: | Top-down shooter |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Hotline Miami is a 2012 top-down shooter game developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital. In the game, the player takes on the role of an unnamed silent protagonist—dubbed Jacket by fans—while committing massacres against the local Russian mafia. In each level, the player must defeat every enemy through various means, ranging from firearms and melee weapons to more specific methods like knocking enemies out with doors. At the beginning of each level, the player chooses from a variety of masks, which offer unique abilities. Set in Miami in 1989, the game primarily tells its story through cryptic dream cutscenes where masked figures berate Jacket for his actions and foreshadow upcoming events.
The game was the first commercial release of developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, who created the game after failed development ventures. Using a scrapped prototype Söderström made years prior, the team developed Hotline Miami throughout the course of nine months. Söderström programmed the game and wrote the narrative, while Wedin designed the graphics. The game's soundtrack was contributed to by several different artists, and features a variety of music styles. Hotline Miami was released in October 2012 for Windows. It was later ported to OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2013, followed by a PlayStation 4 port in 2014.
Hotline Miami received generally positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise focused on its atmosphere, soundtrack, and gameplay, though some criticized its controls. The game's themes and storytelling were also discussed. It was nominated for several awards and was a commercial success, selling 1.5 million copies by May 2015. A sequel, , was released in March 2015. Hotline Miami and its sequel were rereleased as part of the localized 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 released on Xbox One, Stadia, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Since release, Hotline Miami has been considered to be one of the most influential and successful indie games to be released. Many game developers were inspired by the game's success, contributing to a rise in indie game releases throughout the 2010s. Several of the games created during this period had elements influenced by Hotline Miami, particularly its gameplay and soundtrack. It has also been attributed to the success of Devolver Digital, being considered it's "breakout title". It has been frequently considered one of the best video games ever made, and its soundtrack has been considered one of the best video game soundtracks as well.
Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter game. It is set in Miami during the 1980s, and is divided into several 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 attacks, ranging from knives and crowbars to firearms. Additional methods the player can use include knocking out enemies with a door, using them as a human shield, or kicking them against the wall. If the enemy is not immediately killed in an attack, the player can perform a finishing move. Later stages in the game have the player take control of a different character, known as the Biker, who can only use knives.
Both the player and enemies can be felled by a single attack. 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 throughout the game, like guard 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 amount of enemies killed in quick succession. Aiming is predominantly done via a computer mouse, though the player has the ability to lock onto an enemy and not have to aim. On PlayStation Vita, the functions of the mouse are shifted over to the touch screen, and locking onto enemies requires the player to touch them on-screen.
Before each chapter begins, the player can choose from a variety of animal masks, which grant different abilities depending on the mask chosen. These attributes include the player's gunshots being silenced or finishing moves being sped up. 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 playstyle, which is given a classification like "coward" or "sadist". High scores unlock new masks and weapons for the player to use. The game also supports achievements, which are obtained by doing specific challenges like killing two enemies with one brick throw.
In April 1989, Jacket receives a message on his answering machine and a package is delivered to his door containing a rooster mask. Additionally, the package contains instructions advising Jacket to retrieve a briefcase from the Russian mafia at a metro station using violence. After carrying out the mission, Jacket continues to receive messages on his answering machine instructing him to conduct more massacres. After each massacre, 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 who question him for his actions, with these encounters continuing 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 that offers Jacket nothing. After coming home one night, Jacket discovers his girlfriend murdered and Richter on his couch, who shoots him and places him into a coma. In one final encounter with the masked persona Richard, he tells Jacket that he will "never see the full picture". It is afterwards revealed that Jacket was reliving the events of the past two months while comatose after being shot by Richter. After waking up, Jacket overhears that his attacker has been put in police custody, and escapes the hospital in search of him. He storms Miami police headquarters, killing everyone inside and confronting Richter, who he discovers 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 that the calls were tracked to. He then heads to the Russian Mafia headquarters, kills all of the guards, and confronts both leaders of the syndicate. After Jacket kills his personal bodyguard and injures his hands, 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, taking a photo out of his pocket and throwing it out.
After completing the levels centered around Jacket, the player unlocks an epilogue where the player character is the Biker. Similarly to Jacket, the Biker has been receiving messages on his answering machine, and is dedicated to trace 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 alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States, which they view as "anti-American". They do this by ordering their operatives to commit numerous anti-Russian massacres. 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 manages to crack 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 his encounter with the janitors, the Biker departs from Miami.
Hotline Miami advocates an anti-violence message through 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 the actions they are committing. Pitchforks Nina Corcoran believed that the game's upbeat soundtrack contributed to this by ratcheting the players 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.
Each of the game's masked personas serve a specific purpose in their encounters. The yellow-tinted Richard is often inquisitive, the blue-tinted Don Juan is generally passive and friendly, while the red-tinted Rasmus is aggressive. 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 upcoming events in the game's 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 believed that the masked personas to possibly be "projections of Jacket’s disturbed psyche." He additionally wrote that the game's 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 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.
Hotline Miami was developed by Dennaton Games, a team 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. Around this time, he developed numerous projects that were never completed. Among these was a top-down shooter titled Super Carnage, a game 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 game's 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 based on 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. Following this, the two faced financial problems, and decided that their next game would be a commercial release. Wedin began searching through Söderström's unfinished projects, and came across the Super Carnage project. 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 of the same name. Throughout development, Söderström posted updates on his Twitter account and personal blog.
The first playable version of the game was created within the first week of development after Söderström assembled the basics of the game, including a temporary soundtrack. Although initially planned as a smaller project, the game expanded after Vlambeer shared a demo with Devolver Digital, who then 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 on whether or not the game would be successful, combined with developing the game with little to no budget, the team lost and regained motivation repeatedly. In an interview with Edge, Wedin described the development of the game as "fucking hard". At one point during development, Wedin was hospitalized for two weeks following mental health related issues caused by a break-up. Since the team was developing the game with an outdated version of GameMaker that had compatibility issues with newer operating systems, Dennaton faced numerous problems while developing the game, dealing with 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.
When designing the gameplay, Wedin stated that they were designing 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 a 2022 interview, the team said that they designed the game as an "arcade game first, and a reality simulator second". When designing the game's AI, the team were conflicted on whether to make it more "believable" or to intentionally make it varied in behavior, but eventually chose the latter. However, Wedin later said 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 games mechanics, such as the ability to throw weapons at enemies, were initially coding errors that were turned into actual game mechanics. The levels featuring the Biker were one of the last parts of the game to be developed, being created near the end of development.
The game's writing 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 (2010), the Miami-oriented aforementioned documentary Cocaine Cowboys, and Drive (2010). Drive in particular inspired the game's 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 was wanted the project to have an interesting, but "unintrusive" story that players could skip through if they wanted to. Another inspiration that impacted the game's narrative was Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist of the Half-Life series. Beyond those two, Söderström stated that Lynch's works left the largest influence on the game overall. Some of the game's characters were based on real people, with Beard being based on artist Niklas Åkerblad, a friend of the developers and the owner of the apartment the two developed the game in, and the janitors being the developers' self-inserts.
The game's graphics were created by Wedin, using pixel art alongside a high-contrast colour palette. The first assets created for the game, a player sprite and an enemy sprite, were created by Wedin within the first few days of development during a weekend. While the team felt that the game's violent nature could cause controversy, the team believed the decision to use pixel art would mediate any potential 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 Miamis graphics kept the game "out of the spotlight." When looking for artists to design the game's box art, the team initially looked for artists who 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.
Creating Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami was first announced through Söderström's personal blog on 3 July 2012 alongside the release of a teaser trailer. The game was later showcased at the A Maze Indie Connect festival, and again later at a Rezzed exposition in Brighton. Reception towards the game at A Maze was mixed, but 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 released on Steam on 23 October 2012. Support for MacOS and Linux released on 19 March and 19 September respectively in 2013.
In November 2012, an update for the game 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 in the game. Around this time, Söderström created numerous patches for pirated versions of Hotline Miami after several users of The Pirate Bay reported issues with the game. He stated that 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 game's 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 edition release, with only 5,000 copies being made, and was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $75,000.
Versions of Hotline Miami for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, developed by Abstraction Games, 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, released on 19 August 2014. A Japan-localized compilation, featuring Hotline Miami alongside its sequel (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.
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Hotline Miami received generally positive reviews from critics. On that platform, it holds an aggregated 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 of Hotline Miami. Many found the game to be enjoyable, considering it addicting despite frequent death. Polygon's Chris Plante considered playing the game to be similar to playing a sport, stating that the game compensated for being repetitive by allowing the player to restart quickly, and found the game to be addicting. Graham Smith of PC Gamer shared similar thoughts, writing 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 game's addicting nature aside, the game 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 criticized the game's boss fights for what he believed had arbitrary methods on how to defeat them. He further wrote that the times Hotline Miami did "get it wrong" were "deeply frustrating".
Some criticisms were made towards Hotline Miami
The game's narrative was well received, with Reeves describing it as "perfectly [placing] you inside the mind of a serial killer." Saldana described the game 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 game's narrative was lacking in depth and no justification was given for the violence, he believed that too many other video games offered cliché 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 "serving as a mirror to the player." The game's visual design was also well received, often being discussed alongside Hotline Miamis narrative and sound design.
The game's soundtrack was praised, with several critics highlighting it as one of the best aspects of the game. 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 game's visual design, believing that both combined were able to allow the player to look past the game's flaws. Charles Onyett of IGN wrote that the soundtrack "[meshes] perfectly" with the rest of the game. Eurogamers 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 rest of the game. In the years since the game's release, the writers of several different publications have considered the Hotline Miami soundtrack to be one of the best video game soundtracks.
Hotline Miami sold over 130,000 units within the first seven weeks of its initial release. By the time the game's PlayStation 3 version was announced in February 2013, the game had sold 300,000 units. According to Anthony John Agnello of Digital Trends, the game's 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 (2012). When Hotline Miami released on PlayStation Vita, it became the platform's best selling game of the month within six days, despite releasing near the end of the month. By May 2015, it had sold over 1.5 million units on all platforms.
A month before release, the game won the "Most Fantastic" award at the 2012 Fantastic Arcade festival in Austin.[1] At the end of the year, Hotline Miami was nominated for several awards by IGN at its "Best of 2012" awards,[2] including "Best Overall Game".[3] It was also nominated for "Best PC Action Game",[4] "Best PC Story",[5] "Best PC Game",[6] "Best Overall Action Game",[7] "Best Overall Music",[8] and won "Best PC Sound". PC Gamer selected Hotline Miami as the recipient of its "The Best Music of the Year 2012" award.[9] At the 2012 Machinima's Inside Gaming Awards, the game received the "Most Original Game" award.[10] [11] 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.[12]
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, particularly with the GameMaker engine. This contributed to an increase in indie game releases throughout the 2010s, with many of these games featuring 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 games made by larger studios with larger budgets like The Last of Us Part II (2020). The game's soundtrack has also been influential on its own; according to Phil Iwaniuk of PC Gamer, the game contributed to the popularization of synthwave, a music genre initially popularized by Drive. The game has also been attributed to the success of its publisher Devolver Digital, being considered its "breakout title"; since the game's success, Devolver Digital has become one of the most successful indie game publishers.
In 2023, The Verges Aleksha McLoughli described Hotline Miami as the "gold standard" for an indie game, and believed that none of the game's in its sub-genre were able to compare to its success, including its sequel. Nina Corcoran of Pitchfork had similar beliefs, writing that the game was designed by Dennaton with "one foot in the past and another in the future," and was "incredibly replayable" several years later. In a 2019 retrospective article from Vice's Cameron Kunzelman, he described Hotline Miami
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, HardcoreGaming101, Stuff.tv, Popular Mechanics, GamesTM, USA Today, and Sports Illustrated. It's also been 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 (2010).
Shortly after the games release, Dennaton began developing downloadable content for it to expand upon its story, as well as add a level editor. When the proposed length of the project surpassed that of the main game, the project became its own standalone title. Announced ten days after the release of Hotline Miami and released on 10 March 2015, 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, with critic reviews being generally lower and player feedback being divisive. Both games were included in the Hotline Miami Collection, which first released in August 2019.
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 of the game, "Hotline Milwaukee", is included as part of 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 (2013) and Dead Cells (2019). Several fan games based on the series have been created, often incorporating elements from other games such as Team Fortress 2 (2007) and Half-Life (1998). Among these was Midnight Animal, a fan game that would have incorporated elements from the Persona series, but was cancelled by 2019.