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Dogs are a common special type of enemy that appear in both Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Dogs are often found assisting Thugs and a wide range factions in the series such as Mobsters, Gangs, Colombians, and Police (rarely) in fighting against the player. Dogs now also assist the Russian Military and Guard enemy factions exclusively in the Level Editor.

When a dog sights a player, it will sprint towards the player at high speed and perform a leap attack once it is within close range. This leap attack is lethal to the player. Dogs cannot be killed without a weapon in hand unless the player is wearing the Tony mask or has the Killing Punches ability. Ambush tactics are highly recommended against dogs, as they move very swiftly, are immune to door-slams, and cannot be stunned by a thrown item.

When wearing the Ted mask, dogs will not attack the player, though the player is still required to kill them in order to complete the stage.

Dogs use a unique patrol behaviour where they attempt to follow the left wall, meaning they will turn around corners. This can effectively allow them to patrol the whole map, however in certain situations it may get them stuck on a column in the center of the room.

Gallery[]

Bugs[]

  • Dogs, similarly to mobsters with guns, will not be able to attack players for a short while if they stand directly where the dog is standing. However, since dogs are more mobile than mobsters, they will eventually kill the player.
  • Dogs that have been spooked away from a wall will walk diagonally if the player manages to lose track of them.
  • In Hotline Miami it's fairly easy to get dogs to arc back and forth perpetually around the player when near corners.
  • Dogs can sometimes open doors they patrol by, most notably on Demolition's second floor.
  • A famous glitch in Hotline Miami 2's early release versions had spinning Dogs endlessly rotating at their spawn points. There were around three consistent looping dogs in the main campaign. As of early 2016, Hotline Miami 2 features a similar bug with spinning Guards on Release's Hard Mode.
  • Dog corpse sprites display incorrectly when the player is tackled immediately upon loading a screen or tackled by several dogs at once.
  • In the Level Editor beta, punching a Dog unarmed as Evan will delete it entirely.
  • Dogs will bark continuously as they near the player's corpse on a patrol.
  • Dogs will sometimes not be affected by weapons.

Trivia[]

  • The breed that the dog is modeled on is a doberman pinscher.
  • There is a dead dog named Parker being pet by his dead owner outside of the pizza store after the chapter Crackdown.
  • When using Killing Punches, punching Dogs mid-lunge head-on will yield an elongated execution that leaves the player open to attacks. This can be consistently avoided by arcing the punch to hit the lunging Dog at an angle.
  • Dogs are the only enemy that cannot be Roll Dodged under by Corey or The Son.
  • In the Level Editor, Dogs can actually be incapacitated by Evan with melee weapons.
  • Death sprites for dogs are notably all kept in the same file, playerdeaddog.png. This means any character reskin mod must also replace this death sprite kept in a separate file from the rest of the reskinned character's sprites. It also gives rise to a bug where if the player dies to multiple dogs at once or dies to a dog immediately upon entering a screen, they can get any dog death sprite for any character at random. Deaths by multiple dogs at once will cause the player to "flower" into several random death sprite corpses.
  • In the beta of Hotline Miami, dogs were supposed to bark to alert nearby enemies. This was most likely cut either because they couldn't get it working or it caused an annoyance to the developers.
    • They do bark once again in Wrong Number, however this is purely aesthetic.
  • The three headed dogs in Apocalypse are a reference to Cerberus, the three headed dog of Hades which prevents the dead from leaving the afterlife by guarding the gates of the Underworld.
Enemies in Hotline Miami
Normal Enemies Russian Mobster · Policeman · Phone Hom Worker · Teenager · Gang Member · Soviet Soldier · Colombian Mobster · Security Guard · Prisoner · Hallucinatory Demon
Special Enemies Dog · Thug · Waiter · SWAT · Doctor · Inspector · Dodger
Bosses Producer · Biker · Van Driver · Police Chief · Panther · The Bodyguard · The Father · Jacket · SWAT Chief · Gang Leader · Prison Boss · Mark · Corey · Tony · Alex · Ash
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