Hotline Miami places gritty, ultraviolent gameplay, rather than identity or ideology, at the forefront. The story is ambiguous, with little emphasis on character backgrounds or inter-sectional narratives. There’s no forced representation or focus on modern identity politics; characters are mysterious, mostly defined by their masks and cryptic motivations. The subversive narrative works to enhance the surreal mood, not to push contemporary social messaging. In our view, narrative integrity is nearly untouched by modern woke tropes.

This game doesn’t deal with family values, religion, or traditional masculinity in any noticeable way. Masculinity, violence, and chaos are presented as part of a hyper-stylized, 1980s-inspired fever dream. There’s no attempt to revise history or subvert cultural traditions for ideological reasons, Hotline Miami is all about the gameplay and the bizarre trip. It steers clear of wading into contemporary cultural narratives or commentary. Nearly pure escapism, just madness and mayhem.

Alternative worldviews aren’t even on the agenda here. Hotline Miami is set in an abstract, surreal take on criminal underworlds, with minimal dialogue and no overt moralizing on gender, race, or modern identity. If anything, the game’s world is nihilistic, not ideological. No virtue signaling, no villainizing of non-woke characters, and no sense of required political correctness. It’s refreshingly free from the homogenized worldviews so common today.