Hotline Miami 2 Refused Classification Because of An Implied Rape Scene

We’ve just received a copy of the Hotline Miami classification report. According to the report the game was refused classification as a result of implied, visually depicted sexual violence featured in the game.

Warning: descriptions of the violence in this game may prove disturbing to some readers.

As per the report:

In the sequence of game play footage titled Midnight Animal, the protagonist character bursts into what appears to be a movie set and explicitly kills 4 people, who collapse to the floor in a pool of copious blood, often accompanied by blood splatter. After stomping on the head of a fifth male character, he strikes a female character wearing red underwear. She is knocked to the floor and is viewed lying face down in a pool of copious blood. The male character is viewed with his pants halfway down, partially exposing his buttocks. He is viewed pinning the female down by the arms and lying on top of her thrusting, implicitly raping her (either rear entry or anally) while her legs are viewed kicking as she struggles beneath him. This visual depiction of implied sexual violence is emphasised by it being mid-screen, with a red backdrop pulsating and the remainder of the screen being surrounded by black.

According to the classification guidelines, games that “depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified;” will be Refused Classification.”

The report also states that this isn’t an exhaustive list of the content that caused Hotline Miami 2 to be refused classification.

This sounds like the same scene demoed earlier in Hotline Miami 2’s development. After negative reactions, Dennaton’s Dennis Wedin claimed that the studio was considering reworking it. He speaks more about the context of the scene here. We’ve reached out to Devolver to ask if they will be appealing the decision. We’ll update when we hear back.