No.5
Alright, it's time to be a massive WMG fag and try to discuss the ending.
Spoilers, obviously.
So, the ending was pretty bullshit, and could've been done a lot better. Events happened that weren't even onscreen, and everyone who didn't already die in an anticlimactic manner AKA literally everyone except Beard, because we all figured something bad happened since HM1 gets killed off by lolnukes, including Jacket.
However, after replaying a good two or three playthroughs, my mind woke up and started noticing some pretty crucial details, namely on Jacket's fate and the chances of Hotline 3
So, assuming you've beat the game, you might be aware of two scenes. The Bar of Broken Heroes, and the Hard Mode intro. Both scenes contain the entire cast of characters, even those that shouldn't chronologically be alive (in the case of the Bar). This could mean they're a type of "limbo" where all of the dead characters are residing. However, there's one important detail. Jacket isn't in either of those scenes.
>But Richard is in the Hard Mode intro, and Richard = Jacket, right?
Not necessarily. Richard appears to several characters in the story, even when Jacket isn't directly related to them. He has a recurring theme of showing up whenever a character is about to get killed off, too. I've always considered him as a "Grim Reaper" entity of sorts, or any typical messenger of death, really.
So, moving back. Jacket's not in either of those, but he "does" get caught in the explosion in the ending. What's that supposed to mean? While, reflecting back on history – namely to the bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki – we know that the detonations weren't necessarily massive, but gathered a large death count due to the area's population. So, people died. Big whoop.
However, people survived, too. A woman named Akiko Takakura was actually only a mere 300 meters away from the hypocenter, and she managed to live. The Miami area is a lot larger than the Hiroshima explosion, so there's a chance Jacket was at a reasonably far distance away from the hypocenter.
Lastly, after the credits of HM2, we get a "teaser" of a Hotline Miami 3 menu splash, showing the now-ruined Miami city in the background. Who do we know is possible of still being around after a city-melting explosion? Besides Manny, clearly.
>tl;dr Jacket doesn't show up in the scenes where all of the established deceased characters are, and history has proven that atomic explosions aren't magical kill-every-single-life weapons.
Or maybe I'm just really pissed off that HM2's ending was so shit that I'm trying to pick at useless clues/evidence in order to make it better.
Also yes I'm aware that Devolver said they weren't making a third and that the ending was probably just an asshole move.
Also general theories thread?
No.6
Yeah, the ending was pretty bullshit, killing off everyone who survived for no reason. Keeping everything small and having it end with the Son killing The Fans before going skydiving off a roof, and the rest of the characters moving on was fine in my opinion. But throwing in an epilogue just to say "and then everyone died the end :)" is so unnecessary and dumb. The Hotline 3 teaser seems like a joke or maybe it will have something to do with the level editor, since Dennaton said it will let people make their own HM3. Jacket surviving the nuke seems likely, since the Russians only nuke Hawaii (since they lost the war there) and Miami (because the president died there).
In Release, it says Richter is in a Supermax prison. There are no Supermax prisons near Miami, so Jacket probably would've survived. Also, why does the game just forget about the 50 Blessings after the Richter levels? It seems like they change their identities and then leave Miami, so what happens after that? There are still the masked hobos in the bomb shelter in Abyss, Jacket is still alive and giving authorities information about the phone calls, and Evan almost figures about the 50B conspiracy (if you go to the type writer at the end).
Speaking of the Bar Of Broken Heroes, Dennaton mentioned something about Biker still being alive, outside of the bar. At the beginning of First Trial, you can see Biker at the edge of the courthouse, so I'm assuming that's what they ment. Biker's description of what he did during the events of HM1 is pretty vague, so whether he got killed by Jacket and ended up into spooky bar limbo, or just got scarred and went into the desert is subjective.
tl;dr
>ending is okay if you ignore the epilogue
>jacket isn't near miami so he's probably alive
>50 blessings stops mattering after the events of HM1
>biker is alive, or dead, who cares