Hotline Miami is not traditional storytelling. Characters are picked up, dropped, viewed through fragmented or distorted lenses, and all that you're really left with is the gist of who that person was and what they felt like. Among all the 14 or so characters in Hotline Miami 2, Richter is chosen to be the voice of the player at the very end of it all in the Credits sequence. This is no small role. Why, in a game with so many protagonists, does Richter feel like the natural endpoint for the entire series?

First of all, Richter is an enemy. He first appears in the outro to Hotline Miami 1's Push It in the bathroom of the convenient store, much like how the first enemy the player likely dies to is the urinal enemy in The Metro. In Hotline 1 Richter is the avatar of 50 Blessings' betrayal of its own agents, and this shows up in his 'killing' of the friendly Beard incarnations. He recognizes Jacket, he doesn't give freebies and demands you hurry up and order, and he tells Jacket that he's not a VIP like the Russian corpses apparently are. This dialogue is the most evocative of the red-lit owl enemy Rasmus. It's detached, it doesn't understand Jacket or his post-killing-spree rituals, and it's not interested in catering to him.

Crackdown Pizza Outro: What do you want? ... Could you hurry up? We're closing soon.

Hot & Heavy VHS Outro: What're you looking at? ... Hey... I recognize you! You look very familiar! Have we met before? ...

Deadline Bar Outro: Hey you! ... VIPs only tonight! I think you better leave.



Dialogue from the Connections cutscene is markedly different from this. Richter says:

Richter: Ah, there you are! ... I was wondering when you'd be getting back. Well, let's get this over with then...

As we saw with Biker's dialogue changing from Neighbors ("You're dead meat") to Prank Call ("Get out of here if you don't want to die! ... OK, have it your way!") there's a question over whether Richter 'actually' said this or if it's just a coma misremembering, but most people have noted that 'let's get this over with then' has a whole new meaning in the context of Hotline 2's sympathetic portrayal of Richter. I think another thing that doesn't get noted as often is that Richter is on a couch, and he's then replaced by the final appearance of Richard in HM1, which is identical to him being on a couch talking to the final appearance of Richard in HM2. I think it's important to note Richard's dialogue in Connections as well:

Richard: Looks like it's only you and me left now... I'm sure you know by now, that this won't end well. Soon you will be all alone. But that's okay. Before we say goodbye, I'll let you in on a secret... What you do from here on, won't serve any purpose. You will never see the whole picture... And it's all your own fault. ... Now it's time for you to leave. There's a warm bed across the hall from here... And you look like you could use some rest.



Both Richard and Richter relaxing on the couch and Richard advertising a warm bed is drastically different from the first three speaking parts of Richter, where's he's impatiently fiddling with a hammer after having killed Beard. Richter is given a sense of finality in this Connections cutscene that marks a departure from the world of Hotline Miami 1 prior to Connections. Jacket will never again hear Miami Disco, Hotline, Paris, Crystals or Hydrogen, which for the first three parts of the game were the only main level tracks. In Connections and later Answers, the game is entirely different in tone from the first three parts. All these functions are served by Richter in HM1, you could say that Richter serves the same role to HM1 as the level Death Wish serves in HM2: everything afterwards is a little different to what came before.

I wouldn't really draw so much attention to his HM1 appearance, but it is a big reason why the HM2 finale feels so organic, it's because we've seen this before. The Dennaton Notebook for the Gamer's Edition says that one of the primary things they wanted to achieve in Hotline Miami 2 is a feeling of deja vu and realization, and that wider stylistic goal is what Richter is used for so well.

The final appearance of Richter in Assault again has a different quality to it, it's also more dialogue than he's ever had previously:

You gotta be shitting me! Why are you..? ... Look, man... I'm sorry about your girl. It wasn't anything personal. I know you made it all the way here but... I think you're in for a disappointment. I don't really have any answers for you.

After non-fatally attacking Richter, he continues:

Damn, that hurt. ... *COUGH* You know, I think we might not be that different you and I. Have you also been getting those weird phonecalls? ...*COUGH* I wish I had something to tell you... but I don't. The police seem to know more about this mess than I do. They probably have a file on the case around here somewhere. I'd ask you to spare my life, but... *COUGH* you look like you've made up your mind...

This dialogue is a lot more repentant and sympathetic than any of his prior appearances, and you get the impression that he's telling the full truth as he knows it. He also accepts what he assumes will be his death without fighting it, showing that he's resigned to his fate similar to Jacket in HM2. However, in HM2 Richter breaks out and Jacket doesn't, because Richter still has his emotional core to resolve in securing the safety of his mother, while Jacket's emotion core from Beard were resolved (for him) in HM1's Showdown.

The first connection to Richter in HM2 is actually something of a bait-and-switch. In the Rosa outro to Subway, Evan talks to an old woman (later revealed to be Richter's mother) about her son's escape from prison. In the context of HM2's story, with Jacket being arrested and the Fans being killed, you might assume as I did the first time that this woman is Jacket's mother. She describes a distant loner who starts going on appointments with old friends, which is the same thing Jacket did with Beard in the first three parts of HM1.

The upstairs has a small room with military equipment and trophies in it, which makes it seem like it could be the childhood house of Jacket. This gives a new earnest meaning to Richter's 'we might not be that different you and I' from Assault, and gets the player interested in this new locale and thirsty for more details about it in the absense of the Fans (and really of Manny Pardo as well, as his shocking killing of Tony also kills any semblance that he's 'our' protagonist). They may even notice that there's also an outdoor upstairs balcony next to the son's room, for lounging and relaxing as Richter does on Jacket's -- and later his own -- couch.

Outside, the nearby bus stop is painted with the letters 'THE END', continuing the trend that Richter is the falling-action-and-endings character. Whenever he shows up, things are winding down or resting (Act 5: Intermission, Apocalypse).

Finally we reach Act 5 of HM2. When Richter calls Evan it's through a faceless, vague description of the first game's premise, and by this point we've entered bait-and-switch territory where one of my friends still calls Richter 'Bald Jacket.'

First of all, in order to understand what's in Richter in HM2, we have to understand a little bit about what WASN'T in Jacket in HM1. Jacket's vulnerability is not really a subject matter outside of his first mission, The Metro, where he vomits. He takes care of The Girl, but that's only after eye gouging out the Producer a few levels into the game, and it's possible to at least try to leave without her. These things make the coercion angle of the calls in HM1 very suspect, and this shows up in things like PAYDAY 2's Jacket being a fully willing psychopath with no weaknesses whatsoever.

Richter's act is different. He only starts killing after the one-two punch of his car being demolished and torched and his mother being threatened with death. The mystery surrounding his father aside, this is a very convincing story to make you actually buy the coercion angle through sympathy.

This shows up in Richter's small, frantic levels where you're never given a real chance to breathe. The amount of effort it takes to do Richter levels well make him a very potent Act of the game, potency that's required because after Act 3 and Act 4 we are left entirely without a protagonist for HM2, effectively meaning the narrative has to start-over to make up for all the dramatic shifts up until this point. This is actually freeing, as there are no alternative plotlines to distract from Richter's story or interrupt it, as there always were for every character arc prior to Act 5 (and after, as Son's act is shared with Pardo) in HM2.

Like a rat, Richter is a pitiful creature that does whatever he can to survive, but he's also OUR ONLY PROTAGONIST for so long that you really begin to feel his plight. His outros, a far cry from the surreal Jacket-shopping ones, are still him showing concern for his mother in his very normal and quiet house. His mother's chronic illness gives the impression that she's unavoidably dying, and him trying to care for her despite that makes him come off as a genuinely kind and caring person doing the best he can with what he's dealt. Lying to her feels very uncomfortable and the situation in general just seems like a big mess that's beyond Richter's scope for handling or truly resolving it on his own.

Richter's genuinely caring family life stands in stark contrast to Evan's home life, which from Act 5 we see as stripped and abandoned by his neglected wife and children. What Richter has highlights what Evan doesn't have: a loving relationship that he'll do anything to preserve. Richter comes away from this feeling like the heart of the story, like a genuine missing piece to the picture of the series. We've assumed a lot about him from HM1, and we've seen that 50 Blessings didn't use Richter for every betrayal in Withdrawal, so seeing what his function and goals actually was is surprising and feels like a realization, one of the thematic goals of HM2.

Even when Richter is escaping from the prison, it's not because he planned on escaping, but because an assassination attempt and riot provide the opportunity for him to escape. It's not even part of a grandiose plan to see his mother again, he just uses the opportunities available to him and changes into the guard's uniform. Changing uniforms does the obvious goal allowing him to escape as a guard, but it also highlights that Richter isn't a prisoner or a guard or even a 50 blessings rat masked agent, but rather just our protagonist no matter what he does or how he looks. In just 3 levels we went from hating Richter and waiting on Jacket's return to wanting Richter to escape prison to the exclusion of Jacket. That a game can be as good as Hotline Miami 2 up to Act 4 is impressive, but that the game can then get better in it's fifth act is really astounding.

In the context of Richter directly caring for his chronically ill mother, The Son's suicidal search for his dead Father's approval is highlighted all the more. What's his real point for fighting in Act 6? What use does this final drug war to end all drug wars serve when it's all for the whims of a dead man? The Son is still an amazing character in his own right, but he isn't given much of an arc outside of his insecurities. The Son's arc is actually more of the player's arc of becoming self-destructive and killing their own avatars in the Fans. He also serves as a very earnest and enthusiastic bang to Richter's comparative whimper.

The Son is essentially if Richter's Release level was a character. He pursues climax after climax, and after the final suicidal killing spree ends in an actual suicide, the return to Richter's success feels like coming home. Richter's rolled up sleeves, sunglasses and Hawaiian home feel like the accolades the player earned over the course of the game's struggle, and his relaxation is the player's relaxation from the difficulty of the final two Acts of the game. With a final deja vu, Richard's final visitation completes the couch scene analogy from HM1, and so the game can end on an organic conclusion note.

All of these emotions, call backs, and tones lead heavily into Richter's final lines: "Good times never last," and then "No need to fight it, then." Finally at peace, Richter's fears are then answered with the last line of the series: Leaving this world is not as scary as it sounds.