Hotline Miami — A Moral Critique of Videogame Violence

Walter Somerville

Hotline Miami is likely going to be my game of the year. It is a smart, primally satisfying, horrifically violent descent into the sordid world of an animal mask-wearing man, a few dogs, and many, many violent (and now brutally murdered) Russians.  The pulsing soundtrack crawls into your skull and gives the murder an unnerving tranquility and a drugged up sense of cool, reminiscent of Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-violent film Drive, and the fiction of Bret Easton Ellis.  It is like nothing else you will play this year.  But amidst all the glitzy violence and 80s-neon aesthetic, lies a multitude of intelligent design and story choices.  The beauty of it’s simplicity is that it invites you to ask questions, and allows you to find your own answers.

Now, before I go any further, it is important to note that there will be no holds barred when it comes to spoilers, so, for those of you who have not completed this gem, I encourage to play the game first, and read later, these things are best experience first hand, and analyzed in retrospect.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED (But you can do what you want… can’t you?)

The plot of Hotline Miami is loose and purposefully ambiguous, though I would argue that it is anything but underdeveloped. In essence, the game is split between two stories, that of Jacket (the man in the animal masks) and that of the Biker. These stories are further differentiated by the essentially meta approach of the biker levels–compared to the essentially grounded narrative of Jacket. Though the only semblance of traditional narrative comes in the form of a handful of hazy conversations with several men in animal masks, and the menial errands you run between bloodbaths, the story truly comes to light as the player begins to examine their own experience playing Hotline Miami.  The violence is not purposeless, it tells a story that is satisfying in it’s own right. Rock Paper Shotgun’s Alec Meer summed it up well in his review of Hotline Miami: “expect the narrative of your actions first and foremost, and on top of that a series of vicious events beyond your control.” 

Jacket follows orders left on his answering machine, until he is shot in the face (animals tell him nothing matters afterwards, so he could possibly be living out his fantasies in a coma for the rest of the game).  After that, he tracks down the man responsible for the phone calls and murders him in what should be the climax of the game.  But, it ends up feeling strangely empty.  There is no real closure for the player.  Jacket simply takes a photo out of his jacket, lights and cigarette, and throws the picture off the balcony.  The scene is there for the benefit of the character, not the player.

Thankfully, that is not the end of the game.  As the credits fade, players find themselves in control of the cleaver welding biker they killed earlier in the game.  Knowledge of his impending death only gets stranger when you kill Jacket in the same fight you participated in earlier.  In this now obvious alternate reality, the player’s experience becomes the centerpiece, rather than that of the Biker (unlike Jacket’s story, where his experiences were the focus). Where things really become interesting is the revelation that the reoccurring janitors are actually Dennis Wedin and Jonatan Söderström, the two members of Dennaton Games, makers of Hotline Miami. Before they breath their last, the player is asked a series of question that orbit the subject of blame and motive. Is it the player’s fault that they killed all these people, or (and it may be more convenient to follow this path) is it actually the programmers’ fault for making such a violent game?  Once you answer the questions you are free to kill the two programmers, ending the game.  But even as the credits roll, your choices and actions stick with you, as you question what you’ve done, and why you did it.

The differences between the two stories are important.  In Jacket’s story, you are given what appears to be a relatively normal life interspersed between the killings. Even the murders are dictated by someone else; you are simply following orders. While as the biker, you break free from the restraints imposed by the voice on the answering machine, and make choices for yourself.   Broadly speaking, Jacket can be seen to represent everyday life (“IRL” if you’re inclined acronyms), while the biker represents power fantasies, a category videogames are often lumped into.

(Do you enjoy hurting people?)  

In Hotline Miami you kill many, many people, all of which die spectacularly violent deaths.  Many recent games have begun to try to make killing feel “bad,” but playing Hotline Miami was the first to succeed.  At the end of every level, the second that the final body hits the floor, the soundtrack grinds to a halt, leaving you in complete and utter silence.  The stoned-indifference that the pulsing beat instilled only moments before gives way to a gut-wrenching reality: you are serial killer.  I have played videogames my entire life, and this moment marked the first time I have ever truly questioned my morals within a game, because, honestly, killing is fun.  Videogames have become the medium where it’s (at least somewhat) okay to be a sadist. It says something about our culture when most, if not all, of the top selling games have been visceral, violent shooters.  I’m not saying that violence should be purged completely, but I do believe that it is important to examine the types of culture that we subject ourselves to.  Videogames may not be the cause of every violent crime committed by a minor (as the media often suggests), but you have to wonder: is it healthy to spend a large chunk of your time pretending to kill people?  Particularly as technology advances, and those pretend people begin to resemble real human beings more and more.

(Where are you?)

When playing any game, it is important to remember “where” you are, and the ways that digital worlds differ from physical reality.  One of the draws of videogames is the opportunity to do things you wouldn’t do in real life (e.g. murder-sprees in Grand Theft Auto), and it is this aspect that most often draws criticism of the medium.  On one hand, kids have been playing war games since the dawn of time, and I doubt that will ever change.  However, we have a responsibility to be aware of how this stuff affects our thoughts and actions.  We shouldn’t just be okay with awful things just because it happens in a videogame.  I’m not suggesting that we should all become prudes and join a monastery, but I do think that it is important to know what you believe, and where you stand on moral issues, and then remain firm on that, even in the case of videogames.  That doesn’t mean you cannot play or experience things you disagree with, but flexing on issues just because it happens virtually, and being okay with that, is not what this industry needs to grow and be taken seriously.  Killscreen posted an interesting snippet from a study by Brad Bushman, stating that repeated, regular exposure to violent videogames may have a “cumulative effect on aggression.”  Gamers tend to react strongly to critics who blame games for violent tendencies, but I think it is important to step back, and ask ourselves how our time spent in digital worlds affect our lives on the outside. 

(Who is leaving messages?)

Finally who’s to blame in all of this?  Is it the developer’s fault for making such a violent game, or am I to blame for playing it?   Really, this question should be easy to answer, but media coverage seems to suggest otherwise.  It’s nothing new, people have always wanted to blame others for the things they do, but I think it is important to be reminded that consumers are in control of what they buy/consume, and that includes what parents let their children play.  It may be convenient to bemoan a game’s violence, but it doesn’t excuse bad parenting.  In the same way, if a game offends you, it’s your choice not to play it.  On the other side of the coin,  people who play anything and everything need to be careful of blindly adhering to the opinions of others “just because.”  The games industry caters to public interest, and as the sales reports often show, public interest is violence.  

Hotline Miami is a fascinating game.  It’s ultra-violence is strangely unsettling despite the low-res presentation.  Throughout my first hour with the game,  I seriously questioned why I was spending my time on such a sadistic piece of software.  Could this be healthy?  By the end of my time with the game, I was still asking the same questions, but in a new light.  I came to view Hotline Miami as a darkly satirical look at the game’s industry, and it’s obsession with violence, even as I committed brutal murder after brutal, pixelated murder.  It’s a weird game to recommend.  For many, the violence will prove to excessive, and it’s plot too hallucinatory; but for those willing to give it a closer analysis, and see beyond the violence, it can be a positive exercise in examining your own motives (not only in the context of videogames, but with other media as well), if you approach it with the right mindset.