Squatch Gaming's YouTube Channel - This guy is simply the best when it comes to Hotline Miami video content. It's staggering the amount of work and thought he puts into all of his deep-dive videos, and by watching them all you'll surely uncover a swathe of story details that you never noticed before. I disagree with him on his interpretation of Biker's chapters in Hotline 1, but other than that his videos are expertly crafted and mostly in-step with most of the community-accepted theories surrounding some of the series murkier details.

- This guy is simply the best when it comes to Hotline Miami video content. It's staggering the amount of work and thought he puts into all of his deep-dive videos, and by watching them all you'll surely uncover a swathe of story details that you never noticed before. I disagree with him on his interpretation of Biker's chapters in Hotline 1, but other than that his videos are expertly crafted and mostly in-step with most of the community-accepted theories surrounding some of the series murkier details. Hotline Miami Wiki - This is such a great resource for Hotline Miami fans. It is the product of many months and years of discussion among the Hotline community's most diehard fans, and it collates pretty much all of the diverging theories and interpretations for everything in the two games. Excellent.

- This is such a great resource for Hotline Miami fans. It is the product of many months and years of discussion among the Hotline community's most diehard fans, and it collates pretty much all of the diverging theories and interpretations for everything in the two games. Excellent. Hotline Miami Subreddit - The HM subreddit is a great resource that hides so many hidden gems if you look around for a while. You'll find AMA's with the developers, tons of stellar fanart, speedrun videos, theory-crafting threads, etc. Definitely give it a look on a lazy Sunday afternoon sometime.

Okay, so I know I've been making a lot of Hotline Miami-related threads lately. This will be my last one. I promise.A lot of the time when threads about Hotline Miami 1 and 2 spring up on forums like ERA the discussion devolves into comparisons between the two games, many of which revolve around complaints pertaining to Hotline 2's level design as an unwanted deviation from the first game. While I personally think that Hotline 2 is a better game than the first, I'd like to leave that subjective gameplay-related discussion out of this thread as much as possible. If you'd like to discuss gameplay or game design as it ties into the stories of both games, however, then go right ahead.What I'd like to talk about is the interconnected storyline of these two games. I've been playing videogames for a long time, and I don't think any games have ever impressed me with the writing and structure of their storylines as much as Hotline 1 and 2. The stories are intentionally hazy and obtuse on your first playthrough, so unfortunately many people who played the games only once probably never attained a full understanding or appreciation for how everything comes together.It's upon revisiting the games with a greater understanding of the chronology of events within their stories and the relationships between all of the characters that a deep appreciation begins to take root. I find it particularly interesting how much Hotline 2 enriches and enhances the comparatively smaller-scale plot of Hotline 1. Dennaton stated that a big motivator behind making a sequel was all of the unused backstory for the characters and universe that they had created for Hotline 1 but didn't implement into the game. Well, that underlying motivation shines through the very DNA of Hotline 2's story-driven design.The second game's story fleshes out characters who seemed like minor cameos from the first. Even corpses that you came across during levels in Hotline 1 are given backstories and added context in the sequel. Characters like Richter who were unnamed antagonists from the first game are presented in a completely different light in the sequel, and the player gets to learn more about the situations that led them to their appearances in the first game. Hotline 2 delivers the events of its plot out of sequence in a manner reminiscent of films like Pulp Fiction, and what that does is grant the player some added involvement in putting together the full picture for themselves.I remember being involved on the Hotline Miami subreddit and the Wiki in its early days after the sequel launched, and it was such an exciting time. I had just completed Hotline 2 and was left dazzled by how it all ended but utterly confused by the order of events. People worked together online to establish a defined chronology for events in Hotline 2's story, and from there the revelations and theories kept on coming. I'm still encountering revelatory details within some of the game's environments or in pieces of dialog today when revisiting the game. It's crazy!I deliberately didn't go into too many story specifics in this OP because I didn't want to accidentally spoil anything for people who haven't played the Hotline games yet, but feel free to discuss specifics within this thread and spoiler tag important details appropriately. The writing and world-building in the Hotline games are really a cut above most games in existence, IMO, and that's especially impressive when considering it is the product of two men with a unique vision and the skill/passion to see it through to the end.For those of you who are curious about the highly detailed nature of Hotline's story, here are some fantastic resources: