I've spent the last 2 hours watching videos on the lore of Hotline Miami

I went down the same playlist rabbithole few months ago despite never playing any Hotline Miami

Finally got around to playing HM2, fuck thise mouth breather journalists for throwing a bitch fit over the film rape scene. There was barely anything there. That said, HM2 was a but more frustrating. I can't count how many times I got shot off screen. So many god damn widows

Hotline Miami 1 is definitely worth playing, really fun game. HM2 is HM1 again but with worse level design.
Yeah the level design is straight up just bad in HM2 in a lot of levels, it was a mistake making them bigger since you had to rely on screen crawling constantly.

my main issue with Hotline Miami 2's story is that it took what made HM1's story so cool and made it overstay its welcome. The rewind segment in HM1 was one of the coolest parts that came out of nowhere, but in HM2 that's the whole point so it takes some of that coolness away.

you haven't suffered until you've played hard mode

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>understanding lore through video
Why? Story is easy enough, the only thing you could have trouble with is dates.

It's been 4 years since I played HM2, and I understood precisely nothing about it on my first and only playthrough, I was too frustrated with the level design to get caught up in the story, and I never bothered to read into it after.

GODDAMN ANIMALS

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>this man killed the presidents

I pirated the soundtrack and HM1 when it first came out back in highschool. I saw Soderstrom's comment on the TPB page telling people to at least pirate the latest version with the link to the torrent, got my respect immediately. It ended up becoming one of the most important games I've ever played, proceeded to buy everything HM related I could get my hands on and supporting it wherever I could.

That's what a good motherfucking product will get you, lifelong fans who will swear by you. I hope you did your part user.

>pirate gaem
>first time playing through hard mode
>"hey, everything is reversed! new enemies! that's cool, even tho it's not challenging enough for me :^)"
>bought game
>hard mode second run (scoring for A or S on each lvl)
>beating the shit out of keyboard while screaming "EБAHHЫЙ POT ЭTOГO MAЙAMИ БЛЯДЬ, CУКA, TЫ КTO TAКOЙ ЧTOБ ЭTO ДEЛATЬ"
>older brother trying to stop me
>rips off headphones
>bassboosted NARC playing on the background
>I'm running away to the street
I will never forget this moment. First and last time I went ape shit because of a video game.

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good stuff user

HM2's levels are mostly pretty good, they just require you to play them differently. In HM1, you were mostly just peeking around the corners to cheese your enemies and hit them with whatever melee weapon you happened to pick up.
HM2's levels are much more enjoyable and challenging once you memorized the layout and the enemy placements, because the guns are much more useful and the characters have more distinctive skills

Fair enough, comrade.

I understand you play it differently. They force you to use different characters with different skills, but it doesn't make taking a bullet from off screen through a small window not feel cheap on the first playthrough

Yeah, the first playthrough sometimes feels cheap because there is no difficulty curve, but I prefer this to have only a few levels that are actually challenging when replaying the game and going for S ranks.

That's fair enough. I realize it's meant to be replayed, but I don't think I'm going to dive back into it immediately.

Hotline Miami 2 literally has better level design. Just because you can't curbstomp the entire game by meleeing everybody with a crowbar doesn't mean it's "bad level design".

Too bad it was all pointless in the end because everyone just dies in a nuclear war

No, what makes the level design bad is the constant requirement for screen crawling because you'll get sniped CONSTANTLY out of view. If you enjoyed that, I guess more power to you.

HM1 was fair. HM2 was just not fun.

...

biker doesn't die.

Yeah, the characters are better in HM2, I don't see how that has anything to do with the LEVEL design. Guns and characters are better, yes.
Level design is shit, and that nonsense about it being better when replayed is just not true, yes it's true for HM2 in a vacuum, the levels are so horribly designed that they're straight up miserable to play the first time, and on replay you can find some kind of flow with knowledge of enemy locations, but this does not make the level design better. Replaying HM1 levels is much more rewarding and enjoyable than replaying HM2 ones.

>getting sniped constantly
Are you aware that there is a button you can press that lets you look much farther to survey the level? Enemies are rarely able to shoot you from so far away that you can't press shift and see them - and if they can shoot you from that far away, you have more than enough time to get away before the bullet reaches you.
Almost every single Hotline Miami level, bar the final Jacket chapter, plays exactly the same:
>go in building
>melee everyone in immediate room
>burst into room
>melee everyone in room
>burst into next room, bait gunfag into coming over, bash his brains in
>melee everyone else in room
You literally never need to use guns in HM1 unless there's a fatty about. It's a very easy game, and despite mobsters with guns existing to stop you from meleeing everybody, their reaction time is way too long to actually be effective at this. This is why Assault is the best HM1 level, it forces you to do more than just that.
HM2's levels are way more varied, memorable, and well-designed. Levels like Release, Death Wish, Takeover, Dead Ahead, Final Cut, and Caught were fucking amazing. The only HM2 levels I can think of that I'd consider to be blatantly unfun are Casualties and Seizure.

False, HM1 levels are all the same and they get boring during your first playthrough.
You don't need to screen crawl in HM2, it's part of the gameplay to micromanage when do you expose yourself in the more open environments.
The levels are also designed for the skills of the available characters, so they just flow better.

>Are you aware that there is a button you can press that lets you look much farther to survey the level?
what do you think I meant by "constant screen crawling"
this button does not make for fun gameplay.
>You literally never need to use guns
over exaggeration. It's just not true, not to mention that players will naturally be using guns as they're playing the game.
There is nothing brilliant about the level design in 2, all you end up doing is cheesing the ai, I spent most of my time in that game baiting enemies towards me, whereas I was constantly on the move in 1.

2 is not fun. It is universally recognized as being poorly designed compared to 1. You seem to have a hate-boner for 1 for some reason. Visual variation is nice, but also to the detriment of the game at times, going bigger and flashier isn't always to the improvement of the experience, I found HM1 to be a much more cohesive game and I can remember several of the levels off top of my head. When I think of HM2 all I really remember are the frustrating Hawaiian levels.

>You don't need to screen crawl in HM2
I don't think HM2 was that bad, but that's a blatant lie. The only thing I really disliked was that there were enemies that would duck behind whatever and you had to wait for them to pop up so you could shoot them

>you seem to have a hate-boner
Funny how when I criticize a game you like I have a hate-boner for it. The Hotline Miami series are my two favorite games of all time, actually. I simply believe HM2's level design is better than 1's, both visually and mechanically. I've played and 100%ed both on PC, PS4, and now Switch, and my opinion has stayed the same since the first time I've played it.
>players will naturally be using guns as they're playing the game.
Irrelevant, the only reason they're using the guns is because they're given the option to. Anyone who plays the game a second time is going to realize how useless they are. There's no REASON to use guns in HM1 because everyone's reaction times are so bad they can almost never turn around and shoot you in time before you clock them with a bat. The only levels in it that defy this are the final Jacket chapter, especially Assault, and unique level events like the waiters in Clean Hit. Despite Hotline Miami 1 rewarding you so much for varying playstyles in the end screen, the level design itself practically begs you to just go crazy with melee weapons.
Take 2 - the game shits on you if you only ever abuse the same tactics. This is especially evident with Tony and Evan, who struggle in their levels because they can't use guns (unless you do rage mode with Evan but whatever). Going through Subway and forcing yourself to evaluate how to take on the enemies in front of you, despite having no guns to dispatch them easily, to me, is fun. Everyone criticizes Dead Ahead, but to me Dead Ahead was a great level in how every floor made you change your approach, having to frantically switch between gunning people down and meleeing them. You simply can't win if you don't spice things up.
>2 is not fun.
Well, okay, interesting statement, but I disagree with you is all. If your only defense towards criticism is "um actually no", you need to re-evaluate your approach.

The subway is a prime example of where the ai fails in the more open maps on HM2. In the third and final section, I can pop my head and have 8+ people converge onto the same exact spot where I can clock them all in a single pipe swing

I've actually tried that before and it usually got me dead, there were always too many gunners for me to do that. Usually I struggle with that last floor unless I luck out and take the gang leader out first.
If I'm looking in my head for other HM2 levels I think were exceptionally designed, Dead Ahead, Release, Death Wish, No Mercy, and the first Soldier level come to mind.

>If your only defense towards criticism is "um actually no"
it isn't my only take, I've already said why I think the level design is bad in HM2, and your main reason for calling HM1 worse seems to be "You literally do not have to use guns" okay?

Fact is that you're on the move a lot more in HM1 than you are in 2, 2 you screen crawl and you bait enemies out of the screen to your advantage. HM1 the levels are compact, you don't need to screen crawl, you generally know where all enemies are so you can strategize your path through a level in one smooth motion, I did this multiple times playing HM1, in fact I did it on every level, very very rarely would I cheese the ai or resort to just baiting to get through it.
HM2 I never developed a flow because the game actively punishes you for even trying to do that, the game wants you to take it slow and crawl the screen and I just don't find this fun, it encourages you to use long range weapons more, but at what cost? fucking massive levels you can't even traverse because you'll get killed by somebody off-screen?
>Irrelevant, the only reason they're using the guns is because they're given the option to
Absurd claim. People will be using the guns because they're given them, yes... wow. You're downplaying the weapons in HM1 to a fucking comical degree just because melee is a more viable option in the game.

That was actually my strategy for my first playthrough and it worked really well. But yeah, it's easy to tell which levels in HM2 are good, because they also have the best music tracks. Those quads don't lie.

I have to commend Dennaton games for putting out indie games with actual stories and not lazy fucking non-stories that are allegorical about muh depression or muh social issue #2291

They're actually captivating stories that hold up on their own. He actually dares nerding out about something, writing an interconnected story about politics, rivaling gangs, conspiracies and shit. It feels like a traditional video game, albeit one with a slightly more artistic take on the story and themes. I love it, I wish more indie devs would write shit like this.

>dead ahead last level
>enjoyable

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You're playing the game wrong then, all you have to do is to move fast, micromanage when you expose yourself, hide or strafe when an enemy shoots at you and use more guns. And don't be afraid to die, it takes a split second to restart.
You literally never have to screen crawl or bait your enemies into corners, those are bad habits from the previous game.

>those are bad habits from the previous game
literally I just told you that I move fast in the previous game. If I try to play 2 the way I play 1, I am punished for it.

heh

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Thats the second one

for fuck sake
I was in readonly, but here's to (you)

There's a plot, the game just doesn't spoonfeed you it.

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I liked it tbqfh

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>strategize your path through one smooth motion
Yes, exactly. One smooth motion. The same smooth motion, every time. The game rewards you for doing the same thing, which is baiting gunners and meleeing everybody, all the time. It gives you no incentive to go beyond that and try out new techniques or strategies. Hotline Miami 2 does, since the levels are geared around the character you play, and everything isn't all on one tiny screen you have complete control over.
You keep bringing up screen crawling but in my three playthroughs of the game I've never had an issue with this. Simply look farther away every few seconds or so. As I said, if a gunner is shooting you from so far away you literally can't see them at all, you have no excuse to get hit because the bullets take forever to get to you. Your problem is you got cozy with HM1's level design, which is filled with small rooms and corridors that give you too much power over the level, and when HM2 comes along and presents to you a challenge that requires actual thinking, variety, and strategy, you shut down.
You also missed my second point where I said no one replaying HM1 is going to use guns because they'll have realized by then that they're completely useless.
Ok, so HM2 does not let you move fast and makes you think and strategize your approach. How is this "worse level design"? Just because the game doesn't let you turn your brain off and hold the attack weapon when you have a knife?

>implying colonel kurtz couldn't kill the russian premier

user, he's right. The best way to gain point n shiet you have to be real fast. Just die a few times, learn the map and then try to play aggressively, but smart enough not to die. Baiting is alright, but sometimes it's easier just to rush straight forward.

bros...

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Probably more time than was spent writing it.

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I got the plat for HM1 but HM2 just didnt felt the same for me.

>and presents to you a challenge that requires actual thinking, variety, and strategy, you shut down.
My god, this is just getting obnoxious now. You're downplaying HM1 so much now that I am starting to believe you hate that game more than I dislike HM2.
HM1 has everything you purport 2 to have. I find it utterly absurd that you critique a game for having more compact level that actually give the players a fair chance, not to mention force them to bother with screen crawling in the first place.

I'm just going to agree to disagree at this point. You couldn't undersell the first game more if you tried, loving 2 as much as you do, I'd at least expect you to have some love for the first game, but you're actively treating that game as a mistake that should be ignored. Absurd.

Probably the funniest tease in the game. It'd be nice to see a post-apocalyptic themed Hotline Miami with Jacket and company wearing post-apoc themed costumes, but that'd be really it for the sequel. I don't think there's anywhere else for the series to go and it would be a needless sequel.

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So have you guys seen the teases for Dennatons next game?
youtube.com/watch?v=InjLPLQ4E04
youtube.com/watch?v=gpbrwGCbSqg

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Whatever you say, user. I'm sorry we couldn't reach an agreement.

looks like street fighter 2012

So was jacket's ending real or not?

I mean at a certain point I feel bad for shitting all over a game you clearly love.
I'll accept both games have different playstyles, I did not adapt nor appreciate the one in 2, the bigger levels ruined the flow for me and I never wanted to bother perfecting the levels like I did in 1. I'm sure if one decides to do that, they'll find a flow and it'll become a lot more enjoyable to play.

I still think you're unfair to 1 though.

Which one?

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i thought hm2 confirmed that jackets ending is canon

Good. Fuck bikerfags saying jacket's ending was all in his head.
The one where he gets his vengeance and smokes a cig

I don't see why it would be fake. Both Jacket and Biker are alive at the end of HM2.

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Perhaps I did come across as unfair to it. I feel the need to specify that I absolutely love both Hotline Miami games. 1 is an amazing game to me, and it's still fun to play - it was actually one of the first games I truly, genuinely appreciated and loved. It's just that, upon playing 2, I realized I preferred playing the second game. The second game's better to me, is all. First game's still magnificent, and I still genuinely love it.
I apologize for my condescension in my previous replies, it's fair that you prefer the first game. We've all got shit we prefer, perhaps I should've been more civil about it. Have a nice day.

Jacket dies, Biker is unknown. Jacket is in the prison cell when the fucking bomb blasts him away. We never see biker.

What's about this game that attracts spergs? It's the ebin violence is good (even if the game tells you it's bad) or the ebin MUH SYNTH MUZIK

The only people that die are the ones that turn into skeletons in the NG+ cutscene.

Which post offended you enough to make you say that?

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Cheers, user. It's been a pretty nice exchange, and though I mainly spent it shitting on HM2 you've made me reconsider some parts of it, I intend to do a future replay of it, I'll do my best to get more into it this time, because while I had issues with it, I still love the story in 2, and like I said earlier I like the way that game handles masks and characters way more than in 1. 1's Tony mask was so overpowered that it kind of rendered the rest of them meaningless.

How tho? If i remember correctly if Jacket gets his ending, he will kill Biker and vice versa.

well, everyone who appears in that cutscene dies

>The only people that die are the ones that turn into skeletons in the NG+ cutscene.
Hardly confirmed, mate. Why wouldn't they die from that blast? I mean the entire point of that ending is them meeting that awful fate and dying.
also weren't there only like 2 skeletons at the ng+ cutscene?

Saw this thread while listening to this.
youtube.com/watch?v=CbYFdscgPOA
Dunno exactly where it's from but I only found it by chance more than anything, kicks the original out of the park.

youtube.com/watch?v=CbYFdscgPOA

You sound like a miserable person. Even the people arguing in this thread are doing so in a civil matter, and you come in and spew buzzwords like a fucking retard and expect anybody to believe you're above them.
You're a joke.

>Jacket is in the prison cell when the bomb blasts away.
There's a theory that he doesn't die somehow, considering his sprite doesn't get distorted like everyone else's does during the blast

Am I the only one who finds those youtube lore channels highly contemptible for their existence and popularity?
It's not like games hide their lore, for the most part you should understand what is going on unless one of three things is true:
1) That you're mentally challenged and too stupid to understand what the game is laying out for you.
2) That you're playing through it without thinking or taking in the world. Just following the shiny arrows from one thing you don't understand to the next.
3) You didn't actually play the game.

For 1, it's not really your fault, being retarded isn't a choice. But that can't be the majority of people, since we know special needs folk are a minority.
For 2 and 3 though I despair at the thought of how many people can't be assed to play or play properly the games which constitute their hobby.

There's nothing confirmed because the everything about the end of the game is left to speculation.

m8, Jacket turns into a skeleton.

oh were doing this?
youtube.com/watch?v=VyEvZw1rtYs

>kid I used to babysit used to draw endless artsy hotline miami stuff
>vaguely intrigued
>lets me play it on his computer
>best fucking game i've ever played
Thanks kid

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russians take over america and then russia nukes america when one of their politicians or whatever are killed by an american

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>tfw no Beard bro

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fag

Jacket isn't in the Table Sequence except in spirit, since Richard's there. We never see his skeleton.

not really. russians btfo americans and then they make peace treaty.

same thing you are autistic reject

>We never see his skeleton

Yeah but we see him sitting in his fucking jail cell while he gets fucking obliterated by a nuke.

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>take over
>peace treaty
>same thing

Hotline Miami 3: Mad Miami when?

DO U LIKE HURTING OTHER PEOPLE? HAHA

Legit never ever.

To be fair that's pretty bullshit. You're always going to miss details here and there because these videos go into the small details which are easily missed. That goes doubly so for games like this and say, Dark Souls or so where the story isn't told in a straightforward manner. As well as this there could be references to concepts and ideas that you simply haven't encountered in the work, and furthermore some things are left intentionally ambigious.

You're the definition of that wojak brainlet thinking he's a bigbrain. It's not like people are looking into the lore and going "Oh so he was in a coma for the first part of the game".

So go on hot stuff, tell me, what was your take on the story relevance of the encounter between biker and jacket?

not sure what you mean by this, I just rewatched the ending and I couldn't tell any difference between their deaths.

occupying a foreign land after besting them in combat is "taking over" another country regardless of the means of doing so

loved the games and loved the music but never cared much about the lore, caught the gist of it all though and that's enough for me
story in games is like story in porn movies etc... but still I appreciate they took the effort
great series

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>Hotline Miami 3 never
Tuck me in, let me die.

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>occupying a foreign land
did russians occupy?

Jacket never died. He just curled up into a ball and rolled away.

I remember reading something saying the devs said it was up to the community to make Hotline Miami 3. I don't know if they intended that to sound like a call to terrorism or not.

Yikes, man.
It's literally entertainment, you watch them for entertainment. I hadn't played the game in years when I watched this. Not to mention that Hotline Miami as a series is intentionally abstract and obtuse with its storytelling which invites discussion and videos like this. No need to be so spiteful about it.

Ackshully the story is Russia nukes Sanfrancisco first in a 1987 war where Hawaii is invaded and occupied by the Russians. US Buckles and immediately surrenders and signs an unfair "peace" treaty that has the terms that Russians can freely immigrate which creates the Russian Mafia that has ties to the Russian Government to control the crime underworld.

gee i dont know since all you do is kill russians on american soil the entire game

>it was up to the community to make Hotline Miami 3
see

There's no Russian boots on the ground. However the Russian mafia is pernicious enough to openly guard politicians as well as fly USSR flags outside their hideouts.

Jacket is what they call an unreliable narrator.

His perspective of events transpired differently than he imagined them. Biker is confirmed to get his ass handed to him in HM2, and he implies that he barely escaped with his life. Although the Bar of Broken Heroes is a optional area considered to be 'non-canon' his comments can be inferred as what happened from the devs perspective.

We know Jacket's ending is canon because of the comic that bridges the gap between 1/2, and the fact that HM2 shows Jacket being put on trial for the murders at the mansion.

Attached: HM1 Ending.jpg (677x756, 307K)

Anyone who's played on Steam Workshop: did you ever find your own "Hotline Miami 3" on there that was a fitting continuation to the games?
Closest I can think of to that is the AU campaigns where the Fans and the Son never die but the nukes still hit - interesting story.

Why? I want a Hotline Miami 3: armageddon whatever already for fuck sakes. Is it because they can't find any Snythwave music for it?

why

Because they're interesting stories. Read

>cold war turns hot
>Russians and Americans are fighting in hawaii
>Fans, Jacket, Beard, Colonel are all American soldiers in this conflict
>Jacket and Beard's entire squad die. Jacket is severely wounded and given a polaroid by beard. Its a photograph of them together and Beard says it's on the house, you'd do the same for me, right?
>later beard works at a convenience store
>city gets fucking nuked and beard dies while on the phone with Jacket
>Russia American agreement thats like no more nukes ok
>colonel pissed and crazy and makes 50 blessings
>Jacket is pissed about losing his friend and joins 50 blessings
>Most of Hotline Miami 1 is Jacket's recollection of events while in the hospital
>Beard is obviously still dead but manifests himself in Jacket's coma dreams. This one is on the house being repeated
>Murder spree
>Jacket kills the big bad Russian mafia boss, and now that he feels like he has successfully avenged his friend he tosses the Polaroid
Honestly that's really only the confusing stuff. Jake joins 50blessings because fuck yeah America. Richter just got fucked over. Everyone dies in the end anyway so fuck you

based and screencapped

Did Manny Pardo ever catch the elusive Miami Mutilator?

No, but he did kill all of those shitty copycat murderers trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.

>>Fans, Jacket, Beard, Colonel are all American soldiers in this conflict
Even Corey?

yeah, you can see them all chilling together at the start of the first Beard level

No.You have to be retarded tho think that the fans fought in Hawaii.

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>]
these are the fans right?

that's the first one
the second is really trying it's hardest to be like Pulp Fiction

>Jake has a confederate flag in his house
>Sits next to the black guy
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I agree with you user. I also recommend anons who still find the game confusing to play it for the second time

There's actually no solid connection between Jake and Daniels

>Bar of Broken Heroes is a optional area considered to be 'non-canon'
Wrong.
It's literally the groundwork and interlude of Hotline Miami 2 plot premise. If anything IS canon in the first game, it is those very scenes where the Biker unravels the truth. He sees how deep the rabbit hole goes and fucks out from the whole business and leaves Miami for a time.

Americans lose the cold war, there was a non nucler war between russians and americans in Hawai, and the russians nuke Los angeles, and usa surrenders and agrees to join the russians in th Ruso American coalition, that allows russians to go to america, creating mobs and replacing the americans, there is an american organization that want to end this coalition and attack the russians in US soil, this organization(50 stars) is the one that make the phone calls to our character to kill russians

Dennaton is retarded for passing on a third one. This series was only getting more popular as time went on, they could've made millions off of a third one.

Jacket is a kino character. No bullshit kind of guy who just enjoys murder and bloodshed.

How old is Jacket supposed to be? He reminds me of one of those guys that enlists out of high school and then has no idea what to do with hinself.

I assume they were early 20s or so during the war parts, no idea of the timeline though but I'd add 20ish to the difference between final nuke and war.

2 kind of fucked up Jackets character desu. The less you know about him the better

I disagree, I would have liked them to keep his fate open ended but the relevance of beard and the polaroid were something completely absent from the original game that needed at least an allusion.

It's 50 Blessings not 50 Stars

No they aren't, they're based as fuck for wanting to make a story, making that story, finishing it, and not cashcowing it further.

How is his fate open ended? The first game had him die sitting in a prison cell from nuclear flash right?

I know that feel.
I wish someone would make a tv series or at least a movie already. Just the same story as both the games. Or maybe a original one as long as its decently written.
Theres literally no live action series like Hotline Miami and it annoys me.
And yeah I know it was inspired by Driver, but its not the same.