Hotline Miami
2012 video game / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Hotline Miami is a 2012 top-down shooter game developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital. The player assuming the role of an unnamed silent protagonist—dubbed "Jacket" by fans—while committing numerous massacres against the local Russian mafia at the behest of anonymous messages he had received. In each level of the game, the player is tasked with defeating every single enemy through any means possible, ranging from simple firearms and melee weapons, to more specific methods such as knocking enemies out with doors and executing enemies brutally. Before beginning each level, the player can choose from a variety of different masks, which offer unique abilities. The game is set in Miami in 1989, and primarily tells its story through cryptic dream cutscenes where mysterious masked figures berate Jacket for his actions and foreshadow upcoming events.
Hotline Miami | |
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Developer(s) | Dennaton Games |
Publisher(s) | Devolver Digital |
Designer(s) |
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Programmer(s) | Jonatan Söderström |
Artist(s) | Dennis Wedin |
Writer(s) |
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Engine |
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Platform(s) | |
Release | 23 October 2012
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Genre(s) | Top-down shooter |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Hotline Miami was developed as the first commercial release of developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, who both faced financial difficulties following past development ventures. Using a scrapped prototype developed by Söderström years prior as a basis, the team developed Hotline Miami throughout the course of nine months. Throughout development, the team faced numerous troubles related to mental health and financial difficulties. The game was released in October 2012 for Windows, with the game being ported to OS X and Linux the next year in March and September respectively. Versions of the game for consoles that featured added additional content, partially developed by Abstraction Games, were released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita that year in June as well. A version for PlayStation 4 followed in August 2014.
Hotline Miami received generally positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise focused on its atmosphere, soundtrack, and gameplay. The game's themes and storytelling were also a point of discussion, with critics commenting on the games take on an "anti-violence" message by using exaggerated brutality to make the player feel guilt. It has since been considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, as well as a highly influential independent video game. The game is considered the breakout title of Devolver Digital, having sold 1.5 million copies by May 2015. A sequel, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, was released in March 2015. Hotline Miami was re-released alongside its sequel as part of the localized Hotline Miami: Collected Edition in Japan that same year. Another compilation, the Hotline Miami Collection, released on Nintendo Switch in August 2019, and was later ported to Xbox One, Stadia, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in the following years.