Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is official

After a bit of teasing it's finally official - {Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number} is coming and it's coming this year. We got a look at the game during E3 and sat down with the developers to learn more about it.

Sometimes you will see a developer die a couple of times when demoing a level of their game. With Hotline Miami 2 we saw a developer try their luck almost a dozen of times on the same level. It's just that kind of game. And then there are some who say it's too easy.

"Some people were saying [{Hotline Miami}] was too easy, so we're adding a hard mode," said Dennaton Games' Dennis Widén as we looked on with a smile pasted on our faces.

It's not quite the indie thing to do - put out a sequel straight away like the guys at Dennaton Games are doing. They wanted to do a game in between, but the response to {Hotline Miami} was simply too great and they wanted to tie up the loose ends and complete the story.

Speaking of the story it's clearly in focus. And it's all very meta. New characters are introduced. You'll play as "the fans" - young wannabee Jackets collecting masks much like in the first game. These characters represents the actual fans of the first game who wanted {Hotline Miami} 2 to remain exactly as in the original. However, there are more characters that will be playable. Including Pig Butcher from the very first teaser trailer for the original game. Pig Butcher is an actor in this rather violent movie, and well, he takes his part very seriously. This is also evidence that the Dennaton crew were thinking of a greater storyline from the very beginning.

The soundtrack is as inspired as the first time around. Most of the artists are back with new tracks, but with an added sadness and some cheesy guitars to symbolise the mood of the game and the fact that this game is set in the early 90's. New musical acts who approached Dennaton following the success of the first game have also been added.

Officially Hotline Miami 2 is slated for release on PC, Mac, and Linux in late 2013, but Wedin also mentioned that they are working with Abstraction Games (who are porting the original to PS3 and PS Vita) in parallel, sending them code as it gets completed so the PlayStation ports of Hotline Miami 2 should not be released much later than the PC, Mac and Linux versions.