JBoc924
Hotline Miami is one extremely gory and violent game. But it’s not violence for the sake of controversy. It all ties back to the story the developer crafted for the game (as vague as it might be). And with Hotline Miami 2, fans might be under the assumption that, like most sequels of this kind, Dennation might be aiming to simply up the ante in terms of violence and gore just to be more extreme than the original. But that’s not the case. Let’s focus on one particular scene in question from the upcoming game.
Players who got a chance to check out the game’s demo at events were met with quite a surprising scene in the beginning of their play-through. The Pig Butcher character was seen throwing a woman down and proceeding to drop his trousers before The Director stopped the scene, dispersing the cast and crew. Yup, it’s a scene in a movie in the game. This is just one of the story threads in the upcoming sequel/finale, but it’s already being scrutinized for housing such an alarming scene. Granted, the “scene” ends before anyone actually gets sexually assaulted, but still, people are complaining (no surprise). If left alone, the scene could cause quite a bit of controversy amongst not only gamers but possibly general media outlets as well. So, what will Dennation do?
First and foremost, the scene has been removed altogether from the current demo build of the game. Dennation’s Dennis Wedin had this to say about it in a recent interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
“We were really sad that some people were so affected by it, because maybe they had been through something like that of their own. Maybe they had a terrible experience of their own that was triggered by the game. That was not intentional at all. We didn’t add the scene just to be controversial. There is a meaning to these two characters. There’s a lot more to them than just this scene.
We removed it for the demo. We’re going to work with it, see if we can fix it. You get a bigger picture when you play the whole game, which is lost in the demo of course.”
People seem to already be taking the scene, and its treatment of a woman, without context, to which the developer had this to say (regarding the role of female characters in the game):
“These characters come back later in the game and you learn more about them. There’s also gonna be playable female characters – a lot more of them in the final game. She’s the only one in this demo, so I understand why people got so upset. But there’s gonna be a lot more to these characters.”
He then goes on to talk about the inspiration behind this scene, which ties back to what players thought of the first game, comparing it to a horror movie.
“The idea for the opening Pig Butcher scene came from a friend who played the original Hotline Miami and saw it as a horror game. That isn’t really how we see it, but we thought it was pretty cool. We wanted to explore the idea that people can see the game different ways – what it’s all about.
So for this game, we thought it would be cool to examine that idea. Show how some other people saw the game, like if we gave them the ability to do a remake of the first game. That’s why we did the whole movie director [angle].
Also, it’s a bit of commentary to some people saying the first game was just exploitation. Adding violence because it sells. That was upsetting because we worked really hard with the story even if it’s really vague and unclear. We focused a lot on that and how it should support the violence. It should be something supporting it – not just selling it.
That’s also one of the ideas behind the opening. We wanted to make this first scene real exploitation. Make it into this horrible slasher movie. If we made Hotline Miami into actual exploitation, it’d look like this.”
Wedin concluded by stating the team’s current stance on the fate of this scene:
“We’ll see. We’re gonna see how people react to it when we test the whole game. We’ll get opinions and stuff like that. We’ll see how we can present this in a good way. In a way that we want it to come across. Not just as provocative. That’s not our meaning at all.
I respect people’s comments and the fact that people voiced them. That’s how they feel. Our scene made them feel this way, so we have to think about why and if there’s something we can do to make it better. I don’t think it’s right to just say, “You’re wrong. You’re just looking at it wrong.” That’s not the way to go.”
Well, there you have it. What do you guys think? In my own personal opinion, it all comes down to one sad truth amongst the gaming community: People always find something to complain about.
[Source]
