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. In each level, the player must defeat every enemy through any means necessary, with wearable animal masks providing the player with unique abilities. The plot follows Jacket as he slowly loses his grip on reality and is interrogated for his actions. It advocates a pacifist message by making the player feel regret for their in-game actions. The game was developed over the course of nine months as the first commercial release of Dennaton Games, a duo composed of developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin. Söderström programmed the game and wrote the narrative, while Wedin designed the graphics. Several artists contributed to the soundtrack, which combines many music genres like electronic, techno, vaporwave, and synthwave. Hotline Miami 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 has been frequently considered one of the greatest video games, as well as one of the most influential indie games. Initial reviews highlighted its gameplay, soundtrack, and atmosphere, though some criticized its controls. The themes and storytelling were also praised. It was nominated for several awards and sold 1.5 million copies by May 2015. The game inspired multiple developers and contributed to a rise in indie game releases throughout the 2010s; it also contributed to the success of its publisher and the popularity of the synthwave music genre. A sequel, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, was released in March 2015. The series went on to spawn a franchise, with two compilations of both games on platforms such as the Nintendo Switch, a comic book spinoff, and several fan games.