Hotline Miami 2 Preview: Something Rotten From the State of Denmark

I’ve played this before.

Strapped gang members guard the doors.  I’m unarmed.  I wear a mask.  I wear a pig mask.  

It feels familiar.  I hit the first guy with my bear hands, and then I’m prompted to execute him, and his body explodes in a fountain of blood.  I’m told to pick up a hammer and I instinctively threw it at another gang member’s head, and then I’m prompted to pick up a shotgun.  In another room, a prostitute is giving the gang leader a blowjob.  That’s when I shoot the guy.  Then I shoot his guards.  There’s blood everywhere.

But the game isn’t over.  The game doesn’t want to be over.

The prostitute is crawling away.  The game tells me to do something terrible.

“Cut!”

Nothing was real.  It’s all artificial.  The in game prompts were coming from a movie director.  This was a movie set in the world of the first Hotline Miami, and the fiction in the world full of white jacket gangs and hyperviolence is even more violent.  

I’m sitting with Dennis Wedin, co-developer of Hotline Miami 2.  He’s energetic, excited, animated.  The year before, he was showing the game off to Gamescom 2012 in Valve’s makeshift indie Steambooth.  Since that time, Hotline Miami 1 has grown in popularity - It’s insane violence, tight controls, and fast-paced gameplay got it notice, it’s obscure and vague narrative propelled it to a smash hit.  After a recent port of the first to the Sony PS Vita, Hotline Miami 2 is one of the 15 Sony-timed Exclusive games announced this past Tuesday.  Hotline Miami was also Dennis Wedin‘s first game, and Cactus (Jonatan Söderström)’s first commercial venture.  Cactus has made a name for himself with free downloadable experimental games with blaring neon and crazy experimental design.

“The most I did before this was art and music, I was friends with Jonatan and I talked to him about doing a game.  He said he would, as long as I do the art.  He didn’t want to touch the art.”

The game got a lot of criticism for its violence.  It was called out for being exploitative and immature.  

“[The critics] don’t know exploitation,” Wedin said.  “That’s why we’re doing the movie in a movie thing.  That’s exploitation.”

It’s true.  Outside of the world of the “movie” of Hotline Miami 2, the murders aren’t as bombastic. The rest of the Gamescom demo juxtaposes “Pigman” from the movie doing crazy executions, and the “fans” running around and committing violence at night. Both section play like the original, but Pigman is gorier, stronger.  Blood sprays everywhere and prostitutes get murdered.  “Fans” operate a lot like Jacket and Biker from the first, going into gang ridden places at night.  Instead of masks giving you different attributes, you play different characters with different attributes.

“The movie sections recall a lot of levels from the first game.  They’re making a movie based roughly on the events of the first game.  All of that - that happened.  In the world of Hotline Miami, the mob was taken out by a crazy man.  They want to make a movie based on that, and that movie is worse than you were in the first game.  We got the idea from when we did the trailer - that was actually a friend of ours.  Jonatan and I were inspired by Drive.  He said it was like this slasher flick.  That’s what great about the first game, everyone has their own thing.  So we took that idea, and ran with it - we made Pigman.”

“Meanwhile the other guys in Miami - the fans like to call them - are also inspired by you from the first game.  But the mob is gone.  So they’re looking for anyone and anywhere to continue Jacket’s work.  But that’s the thing- they all - the movie and the fans - they miss the point of the first game.  It’s all people who think they know, but don’t know.  The fans are the guys in love with thie violence of the game - you can make a violent game without it being violent - the movie are people who think it’s about the blood - the exploitation.”

More than just an exercise in being Meta, it’s the kind of game that makes a statement without explicitly making statements.  In fact, there’s a list of disallowed questions, and it’s all questions about how to interpret the first game.  I jokingly ask one of these questions, obviously reading from the list.  Specifically, asking about the why the level of violence.

Disturbingly, the level of violence isn’t far from other games.  Call of Duty has stabbing scenes all the time, Splinter Cell is all about quick takedowns, Assassin’s Creed involves stabbing, Dead Space involves mutilating people, and GTA and Saint’s Row allows the player to revel in anarchy.  

“We made Hotline Miami with no real point.  We wanted to have you commit violence to get through our levels, but to ultimately have no point - no country your fighting for - no patriotism - no revenge - nothing.  You just clear a level, clear it fast, and get a high score.”

I tell him how it reminds me of the work of Michael Mann (Miami Vice and Crime Sttory), and that the end of each level reminded me of the next to last scene in Taxi Driver.

“That’s great.  That’s awesome.  But I’m not going to tell you what to think.  That’s what we like about this game.  You can take any point you want.  What was the point of the masks and the dream sequences?  Why did he wake up in a hospital? Is the ending with the pixel hunting better than the other ending?  It’s a narrative in a game - it all depends on you as a player.”

Later on in the show - I caught him running around handing out Hotline Miami 2 swag to unsuspecting gamers.  His little brother was carrying his laptop, ready to show it off to anyone who asks.  

“As soon as I can, I’ll find an outlet in the hall, and sit down and show it to everybody.  Didn’t pay for a booth.  Don’t need to.”

That’s punk rock.

His third game is on that laptop, too.  But he’s showing anybody.