Gliches and Tricks of Hotline Miami

Overview

Every game has it’s awkward moments, and Hotline is not an exeption. Noclipping mobsters, useless sequence breaks, and more now avaliable at a click.

Introduction:

AUGUST 2019 NOTE: This guide is no longer being updated. If you want to see more Hotline Miami glitch fun, check out this guide for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number’s glitches, by Yossarian the Assyrian! It’s even longer than this one is, and goes into a really great level of depth. Don’t miss it. It’s fantastic.

Before we get into the glorious glitchyness that is Hotline Miami, I’d like to take a moment to say that this is all orginal content created by me, in both the screenshots and writing. I didn’t discover all of these gliches, but I have gone through the effort of looking for them and replicating them for original screenshots. WARNINGS: This guide contains explainations of glitches, which are unstable and prone to change. It also may affect your enjoyment of the game if you have not first finished it, as many of the glitches can give you significant advantages in some gameplay. This guide contains potentially major plot spoilers, read with caution.This guide contains mild vulgarity, if offended I pity your internet experience. That aside, lets begin.

Screw Doors!: (Almost) all levels

So you’ve got a Delorean. Sure, gull-wing doors are pretty cool, but the weird headlight thingy always was the main appeal of the car to you. No worries! Now you can enter the car simply by running straight at the hood! Because doors are overrated.

Windows Suck too: Clean Hit

On the second level of Clean Hit, there is a long hallway with two annoying mobsters that will shoot you unless you climb out a window and crawl past a creepy janitor dude who stares at you into a balcony. But what if windows aren’t for you? The answer is simple: Grab an Uzi and spray out of the elevator until they die. You don’t even need to aim. They are right there below you, and you can skip the window, cutscene and all. It’s amazing how satisfying this is. Oh, and it’s faster too. Speedrunners take note.

Oh yeah, occasionally they shoot back. But that’s not too much of a problem eh?

I hate phones: The Metro

So what if you hate phones? Should I not play this game? Yes! Of course you should! You can skip straight to opening your suprise murder gift without even listening to your phone and go right away to the killing! Then get f###ing used to phones, that’s the only time you can skip it.

Thdududdudududududududududu: Biker Levels

As biker, you can throw a knife into a door at the right angle and it will stick and make a fairly annoying low pitched thududududdudud noise. Because Hotline doors. Also sometimes the knives bounce off and it looks sorta cool.

Quality content, everybody.

Goodbye World!: Resolution (Jacket)

This one’s a classic. Wasn’t as hard as it looked to replicate, but here you go. Basicly, if you stand next to the mobboss at the end as he offs himself, you can say goodbye to the world as well. Two for one deal.

I think my bed is magic, man: Neighbors

That awkward moment when your bed changes colours multiple times.
Wait a second! The sinks are magicly filling and emptying themselves too! Randomized textures are fun.

Projectille Vomitting

So Hotline Miami has serious issues with object borders and overlaps as we all know. But it’s not all bad! It lets us vomit through walls! (It also lets people bleed through walls, but we don’t talk about that)
A lovely depiction of our dear friend Mr. Chicken Richard Jacket Schizophreiniac vomitting violently.
Even works on solid brick walls!

How can this even happen: Tutorial

You can die in the tutorial. Throw a weapon near the last mobster and he will pick it up and you will die.

What you gonna do, arrest me?: Trauma

I think I discovered this one. Really hard to get pictures that convey it, but here we go. Basicly, if you enter the keycard at the exact moment the officer lowers his paper, you can move freely for a bit before the view locks back at the guard.
You can actually get all the way to the elevator if you are lucky, but it doesn’t give you immunity in the next floor.
During this period, you are immune to guards (as you are already ‘caught’), and can run around freely.

How to be cheap..or very practical.

Shank patrols through windows as they walk by, without a chance of bodily harm. This one’s a classic. Just press space repeatedly while pressed against the glass.

How to get an F: Decadence

Because I’m so good I can get a lower score then the lowest score.
I took this one from a 5-second speedrun of Decadence someone did on here a while back. First, you window shank a patrol and take his gun. Shoot the gun to get someone to come out of the building. Kick him against your car, and when you wallkill him you clip into the car, cutting off the level before you killed much of anything. Extremely useful for speedrunners, amusing for those who like a big fat F+ staring them in the face.

ShMo’s Shotgun of Badassery: All but Resolution and Tension (and biker levels)

So today I stumbled across this brilliant guide by ShMo about using the Jake Mask to give yourself a 24-round shotgun, which you can read here.

Basicly, you need to find a mobster screwing acround (EG drinking, smoking, sitting, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) and throw something at them. They will drop an assortment of glitchy weapons with various amounts of ammo, and one of them is a pump shottie with 24 rounds, more than 4 times the buff from Rami. So thank you ShMo for being a bloody genious.
This is too fun.

Dog + Pool Cue = (Pool Cue) – dog: Levels with pool cues and dogs

So the pool cue is one of about (2?) weapons in the game that breaks when you hit someone. But when you hit a dog with it, it stays the same.
Works on half broken ones too. This has no effect on whether it breaks upon hitting anything AFTER you hit a dog with it.

ShMo’s Human Shield of Infinite Death: Crackdown

Another one from ShMo’s brilliant discoveries. Standing with a human shield in front of a sniper will freeze you in place and loop the gunshot audio until a SWAT guy kills you.

ShMo’s Awkwardly Floating SWAT team: Crackdown

…And when the SWAT teams are left to wander, they will walk out the broken window and patrol a story above the ground..and then walk off the screen. Don’t do .338 kids. Nothing good will come of it.

Cowardly Noclip: Crackdown

So this one is useless and aggravating to replicate. If you kill the two lower guards at the start of the second level while sprinting upward at an angle, the top one may noclip and sprint away. This doesn’t even break the level as this is the only level where you don’t have to kill everyone. Story time: I made an estimate of 45+ attempts in a row for each replication of the glitch, and whenever I DID get it right, I had..eh, 0.3 seconds to spam the screenshot button before the little bugger sprinted off into the void. So, in the effort of taking the screenshot you see above, I died about 130 times, having to perfectly preform the manuvers mentioned each time. The feeling when I got the screenshot was worth it though. Just wouldn’t be the same if I just described it to you guys, right?

I’m Gordon Freeman

The oldest one in the book. Holding a non-spawning weapon will sometimes drop a crowbar instead of the weapon you were holding when you die. By non-spawning, I mean a weapon you can get only by wearing a mask. So Carl’s drill or Richter’s Uzi would work for this.

My shirts must be made out of the same stuff as my bed: Trauma

Disapearing shirts. that is all.

My SNES colour faded: (All levels with SNES)

Didn’t expect it to be cyan though…Look, this was a slow day ok? I don’t actually know why it looks like that. It always does for me. If anyone is more competent as to WHY this is, feel free to point it out. Could be interesting…maybe.

Impersonate Beard!: (movie rental place)

You can noclip through Beard, but you can only get behind the counter in the video store.

The Murderer Unmasked

Attempting to clip into the car by wallkilling an enemy next to it may fail to end the level, and instead loop the walking animation slowly, blocking you from moving, while your mask floats behind you.
Dramatic title is dramatic.

Multiple Enterances of Cheapness and Death: Hot & Heavy

So apparently you can kill 80% of the enemies on this level’s first floor without technically entering the building, without a chance of bodily harm, by baiting, sniping, and wallshanking. I’ll mostly leave this one up to the screenshots. The doors to the other levels of the building can be accessed by the outside, although you cannot venture more than a few feet in.
I must note that the main enterance (not pictured) must NOT be entered. This locks you inside the building. Nudge the door open and snipe with a shotgun you can grab from a wallshanked patrol.
The lovely wallshanking.
These guys are sadly unkillable this way.

More noclip: Vengence

Sometimes guards will escape through the glass and wander around in the air.

Fragile/Sturdy Fishtanks

A direct blow from a melee weapon will not break a fishtank, but thrown weapons and bullets will. Not really a glitch to be fair, just a bit of inconsistency.

Stairkill/Wallkill: Resolution

You can wallkill the mobster against the stairs on the last level. Honestly, I’m not sure if this is intended or not, but I’ve never seen it happen on any other staircase. It’s a bit strange.

Mobster flypaper: Hot & Heavy

Sometimes circle-strafing mobsters will get stuck in this wall. Not sure why, but it must have something to do with them detecting me messing around on the edges of the map in my earlier glitches on this level.

Another noclip: Hot & Heavy

Nothing witty to say here. If you die, especially if you were shot, while these guys are chasing you, they might run through a wall for no apparent reason and disapear. Thank all that is holy that this was much easier then the Crackdown one. Only 5 or 6 takes.

6 Knives. That is all: Prank Call

It slices and dices (mafia) Now double the stab. Before talking to fat man, throw all your knives into the wall. When you talk to him, it resets your knives!

A quick audio fix for a minor audio glitch: All levels

Hey look! Pixelconglamorate is providing useful advice for practical problems not involving excessive force or flying! So some of you may have experienced a problem where your background music at the start of the level is very low volume for some reason. The simple solution is simply to hit escape, and hit escape again. Opening the menu fixes it for some reason. However, every death resets it, and you have to do it again.

He saw the light: Metro, using Oscar

While Oscar usually makes you see everything in red, when in the briefcase sequence, all appears normally. Probably just overlooked.
Comparasion.

Burn don’t leave meee: Metro

Credit again goes to my contributing friend (still listed as Editor under an old name) for this one. Wanted to add it for ages. So, what you do is you run up to good old Burn’s face (Bum if you lot insist upon it) and run backwards while engaged in a staring contest, until you hit the hobofirecampbarreloffunandprobablyalotofdrugs, which is when you punch Burn in the face. If you do it right, F = ma and inertia kicks his ass. Sideways. Through a barrel. And a brick wall. Apparently, because hitboxes are fun, when the game realises that Burn is stuck in a barrel, the game decides that this is unacceptable and forces him OUT THE OTHER SIDE. THROUGH A BRICK WALL. Much fun all around.

Sharpened Batons: Assault

Using Dennis’s mask at the start of Assualt will, instead of giving you a knife like usual, will give you a hard plastic baton identical to the ones used by the officers. Probably a tad awkward to stab someone with.
Has the same swing speed and range as the knife, but has a completely different execution (the standard baseball bat one). Kind of interesting. I guess it might have been easier to retexture the knife for the baton then to add a new weapon, but that said, it still has completely new textures for executions and other death you caused. Makes you wonder if hacking in like, say, a katana would produce blunt wounds if you used it on the officers. Wouldn’t suprise me if they replaced the standard textures with only special blunt ones.

Only You Can Prevent Human Sacrifise: Highball

Credit to Swoffle My Woffle for this one. Taking a human shield for the last ‘kill’ of the level will prevent the cutscene from playing. I am not sure if snapping the neck of the hostage will affect the glitch as of the time of writing. Now, this gave me an idea; does this same glitch work on other levels? As you will see, it does, quite interestingly.

Game Breaking Bug: Neighbors

Trying the same hostage trick as described in Only You Can Prevent Human Sacrifise on the very last enemy in Neighbors results in a situation where the phone is imposible to pick up, and the stairs impossible to decend, making the level impossible to complete, even if you snap the neck of the hostage.

Elevator Shaft Stroll: Assualt

If the detectives charge you and you die in the elevator, in addition to practically the entire station sitting on your corpse in a tiny elevator, the detective that charged you (hehe) will walk through a wall and float around carelessly.

Bowling With Hitboxes: Highball

So, the bowling lanes in Highball? You can’t walk on them through the TOP of them, but apparently you can just stroll through if you enter from the left.
Guess they are pretty hardcore about cheating at this place..invisible walls and all.
Kinda feel bad for the guy stuck under the floor over there.

Disapearing Corpses: All (if you are outside the map that is)

I beat this guy to death. You’ve seen it before.
Aaand he’s bleeding. No big suprise.
Wait, where is his blood?
Wait..hold up..

..I don’t know why this happens, ok? Just go kill people outside the main level building and eventually if you are far enough out of the map this will happen. I’ve also seen people get cut in half by the level boundary.

Horrific floor glitch: Crackdown

So I tried out that glitch I was just recommended in the comments, by Swoffle My Woffle. When you beat the second floor of Crackdown and the SWAT team appears, go down the stairs and back up. Then go back down. And keep doing this. Bad things happen.
For instance, dying on floor changes..
And becoming an invisible corpse..
And standing in a pile of erratic random weapon drops..wait no, thats not that bad.

17 sponges worth: Metro

Credit to Yossarian the Assyrian for this morbidly fun glitch. Though Burn remembers the advice from his childhood to always get back up, you are there with a bat to crush his hopes and dreams.
Essentially, he is invincible, only killable by execution. So he bleeds forever when you hit him.
And the textures don’t disapear either.

THE END

Thank you for reading! This guide took practically as long as HM2 hahaha..But I digress. You lot are pretty cool guys.

-CREDITS

dun..daannnnn..dun.da.dun.da.duuuuuuuuuuuun.dun.da.dun.da.duuuuuuuuuuuuuun.dun.dadadadunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…………….

PIXELZ306 (PixelConglamorate)
Writing, screenshots, some glitches

SHMO
Some of the better content in this guide, important advice, being generally awesome

AMERICAN_IDIOT
Editing

YOU THE GLORIOUS READER
PR (Executive)

1000 VIEWS EDIT: I am suprised. Pleasently so. Thank you all for taking a gander at this guide. It was worth making I suppose. Have exellent evening/morning/noon/afternoon/midnight/day/week. I appreciate it. Thanks to your support, I will begin a glitch guide for Hotline Miami 2 as well. AUGUST 2019 EDIT: Sorry y’all. Check out Yossarian the Assyrian’s guide instead if you were excited for this. I promise you won’t be disapointed.

HM2 Guide progress edit: I have started the second guide, but unfortunately due to a glitch I cannot use WASD at the moment. Heh heh. Um. Well, at least I now know that you can clear Down Under as Corey and not use WASD..

Edit 2: Work is underway on a HM2 guide. Until then, I will update this guide with a couple glitches.

Edit 3: In light of recent events on steam, I have nothing more to say then that as a content creator, you will never have to pay me a cent to view my guides. AUGUST 2019 EDIT: heh, that was a weird time, wasn’t it?

Edit 4: As of 11/27, I have revised and edited the guide completely for the first time, and added three glitches, 2 minor, 1 major. Let’s call it Version 1.5 or something fancy like that, eh wot?

FINAL AUGUST 2019 EDIT: Guide is officially finalized, and won’t be edited any further. Thanks to all of the speedrunners, wannabe QA testers, modders, and regular players who helped contribute to this guide and/or found it useful. Cheers everyone.