There’s a point in the Hotline Miami 2 demo where it looks for all the world like one of the characters is about to rape a woman. That didn’t go down too well.
Asked by Rock Paper Shotgun what it meant, and how the developers felt about some people’s negative reactions to the scene, Dennaton’s Dennis Wedin gave a damn good account of the game and their reasons for including the scene.
“We were really sad that some people were so affected by it, because maybe they had been through something like that of their own”, Wedin said. “Maybe they had a terrible experience of their own that was triggered by the game. That was not intentional at all. We didn’t add the scene just to be controversial. There is a meaning to these two characters. There’s a lot more to them than just this scene.”
The scene has since been cut from the demo. Pushed on why the scene was in the demo/game at all, Wedin talks in depth about some of the creative changes and inspirations they’ve made for the sequel; it’s a good read for fans.
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22 responses to “Sex Assault Scene Pulled From Hotline Miami 2 Demo”
LOOK AT ALL THE MURDER
Sounds like what whiny, annoying people do… take everything out of context and complain about it.
Ruining things for the rest of us since the beginning of time.
To be fair, it sounds like the demo took the scene out of context itself, making it appear to be there for no significant reason.
As far as “whiny, annoying people”, sexual assault can traumatise victims horribly and this kind of thing can trigger flashbacks, anxiety attacks, a whole host of unpleasant and dangerous things, and it’s not fair to label people who experienced that in the way you have.
Legtimate question: Is it reasonable to expect a demo to provide the context. I can’t think of any that do. Usually its just some particularly interesting level.
I never said that a demo should provide context, that’s unreasonable. But you can’t blame people for reacting the way they have based on what they were given, which was a single out of context scene. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Wouldn’t a reasonable person say ‘this is a demo’, there’s probably a context the demo doesn’t touch on because its a demo?
Perhaps. It depends if there was a greater context hinted at. But a rape survivor confronted unexpectedly with an in-game sexual assault isn’t going to stop and wonder what the grand context might be. I haven’t played the demo, but I’m nothing but empathetic to people who reacted badly to this, regardless of whether or not it was a “rational” or “reasonable” reaction, because people who are triggered by content like this don’t proceed to think rationally about it, they usually proceed to have a massive anxiety attack.
I’m understand their reaction and I hope things improve for them, but I don’t think its productive to pander to irrational reactions either. The fact is, a subject shouldn’t be off limits to an entire medium, even though some people may not be comfortable with it. This seems to be what’s happening at the moment.
And I say this as someone who thought the Hitman Absolution trailer was fairly questionable.
That’s right WE NEED OUR RAPE SCENES HOW DARE WHINY RAPE VICTIMS TAKE THEM AWAY SOMEONE NEEDS TO…
oh I’m sorry, my fedora slipped and I lost my train of thought.
That’s why I wear a second smaller fedora under my regular fedora, just in case.
Is rape always gonna be a touchy subject in video games?
Like if you include it in your game (within context and all that) does that make you a sick developer? Like most people seem to believe.
*Nobody mention rapelay, because I’m not talking about playing a rapist, i’m talking about it just being in the game whether it be a cutscene or the player seeing it or whatever. No interactivity.
I think rape is a touchy subject full stop, frankly. Though the notion that including sexual assault in video games means developers are sick or insensitive is absolutely wrong, it’s a legitimate area of thematic exploration, and if you can include rape in a game in a contextually appropriate and sensitive way, I don’t see why you should be forced not to.
I think rape, like just about any topic, has a place in gaming. I think it can be explored in gaming.
Side note, we devour war and murder in games like it’s cake. Nobody thinks twice about killing thousands of people in a game with a gun/sword/knife but if a game came out in which you raped people, how would that be any different?
mmmuh feels! If we pretend rape doesn’t exist & never talk about it as to not offend anybody.
Sexual assault is an extremely touchy and offensive subject, but so is murdering hordes of people with baseball bats, and yet none of the people complaining had a problem with the rest of the demo?
Indeed. If the rest of media had the kind of controversy these games are having then we’d have to pull a whole lot of books, film, and tv shows. Especially all those procedural cop shows. No more CSI, Law and Order SVU, or Criminal Minds.
Because while many rape victims are able to be upset about being raped after the fact NOT MANY MURDERED PEOPLE VOICE THEIR COMPLAINTS FOR SOME REASON.
HAHAHA! You got a laugh out of me.
To add to the topic, it’s funny how things that are foreign to us like war and murder, don’t bother us until we have a brush with them. Many years ago I saw a man get brutally beaten on the street, it was really sickening, especially the splotchy noises when he was slamming the mans head into the footpath. It really traumatized me. For a few months afterwards if I was watching an action movie, the kind where Bruce Willis or Harrison Ford heroically fist fights some ruffian I would immediately feel sick in the stomach. Seeing a fist fight was no longer delightful or entertaining, it was sickening. I’m over it now tho, I could watch a UFC match without hesitation. It’s just funny how seemingly violent and horrible things, like war, can bring us so much joy and entertainment when they’re just a fantasy.
I know this game is a murderpalooza but I’m not crazy about rape being in this game, but I guess in the context of Hotline Miami it doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to have it.
That said, I appreciate the developers not being callus about the matter, and at the same time in a way I kind of respect them for not being afraid to stand by their work without being tools about it.
“I know this game is a murderpalooza but I’m not crazy about rape being in this game, but I guess in the context of Hotline Miami it doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to have it.”
I think I’d have to agree with you there. The game is based on extreme violence and destruction, it’d be hard to pronounce rape to be crossing the line in a game like this.
Hundred of men murdered = okay. One sacred woman being raped = burn the developers alive and sink the whole genre of video games into infamy. Yep, because a game that portrays the gritty, violent life in the crime underworld, still needs to be politically correct to a relatively small percentage of the victims. “Realism” seems to only be tolerated if men are the target, and I have to wonder… isn’t that sexist?
If people want to talk about egalitarianism and equal opportunity, they should accept that violence portrayal in the media is also equally distributed among the genders, no?
DISCLAIMER: I condemn rape, I believe it is a horrible thing which shouldn’t ever happen. But I also hate murder. And I hate hypocrisy. Condemn the whole game or none of it, but not only the part that kind of hits close to home.
And it turns out that the scene was of an actor fake-raping a women. Not that it makes it better, visibly, but it does pay to have the right context. Anything can sound bad outta context.