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"Alright boys! This is it! Tonight we'll be rich! We can do anything we want! The Colombians will have nothing left! They'll learn to fear us! A toast to our new lives! As kings of the street!"

The Son is a playable character in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. He is the current leader of the Russian Mafia and took over after his father killed himself during his encounter with Jacket in Hotline Miami.

He is the protagonist for the majority of Act 6: Catastrophe, serving as the final playable character in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. He also serves as the main antagonist of The Fans' storyline.

His community assets can be found here.

Personality[]

The Son is shown to be ambitious and multi-talented, restoring much of the Russian mafia's influence in Miami in just a month. He ultimately worries, however, that his lavish lifestyle and huge amount of notoriety will cause him to meet the same fate as his family in the original game. He's also off put by how easily his men are killed, with the corpse of one surrounded by money in the vault in Blood Money triggering a vision of his dead family. He has a friendship with The Henchman, which he tries to rekindle once things have settled down on December 20th. He detests boring lifestyles, and, after failing to contact the Henchman, takes an unprecedented amount of the new product. The events of Take Over strongly imply he has a death wish, as the plan involves him single-handedly fighting 80 armed gangsters before walking unarmed into a firing squad in the main office, and he outright states that he isn't "Afraid of dying" in The Table Sequence.

SonFury

How do you think? They invited me.

His most noticeable physical features are the large scar down the left side of his face, and the golden hammer & sickle earring in his left ear. The source of the scar is never addressed.

His original hideout features Russian military crates (the same seen in the Hawaiian occupation levels and Richter's "Demolition" level), glass cases of expensive swords and guns, and what appears to be a shark tank. He's shown to be very generous when distributing payment money to the Henchman, but not a remotely equal amount, the difference highlighted by the extravagance shown in their cars.

Techniques[]

The Son has the choice of 3 different techniques at the start of two of his levels, granting him specific abilities. A new technique is unlocked upon successfully completing a level.

Each ability is akin to that of The Fans, and is unlocked in a similar order:

Bodyguard[]

Bodyguard-0

The Bodyguard's old sunglasses, cracked when she was killed by Jacket.

Inherited from the blonde ninja girl from the first game, this is unlocked by default and activated with the space bar, granting the Son the ability to start with a Katana and has the ability to roll dodge. Similar to Corey, he is able to become temporally invulnerable, rolling under gunfire, and avoiding melee attacks.

While rolling, he cannot attack, but can do so immediately out of the roll. There is a short delay after the roll has finished in which he cannot roll again, meaning that he cannot constantly repeat this move to achieve a continuous state of invulnerability.

Dirty Hands[]

DirtyHands-0

The Son gains the ability of Killing Punches, but cannot pick up any weapons. Similar to Tony, his punches kill standard enemies at the cost of being unable to use weapons, and he is able to kill fat enemies by first knocking them to the floor and then performing a ground execution, as well as being able to perform ground executions on dogs. The ability also trades his weaponless ground execution from a slow foot grind to a fast double punch execution. A noticeable difference between Tony and Dirty Hands is The Son's punching speed is still the default used by most player characters rather than Tony's rapid jabs.

Bloodline[]

Bloodline-0

You remember this?

Inherited from the Father, the Son gains the Fire Power ability, which allows him to start a level with a pair of MP5s that he dual wields. Similar to Mark, he is able to aim in separate directions; horizontally by holding down the right mouse button or left trigger of a controller, and vertically by holding the right mouse button and left shift.

The Numbers on the sprite are the date of Showdown in Hotline Miami, which is reference to the day his father and the grandfather were killed by Jacket.

He has a full magazine of ammo for each gun in reserve. After his ammunition is depleted, he drops his firearms on the ground and reverts to using other weapons normally. You are also able to pick up the MP5s after their ammo is depleted, but they will still remain unusable for the rest of the level. A notable difference between Bloodline and Mark is the inability to perform ground executions while using the MP5s, likely because of the relative lack of doors in The Son's levels.

General Playstyle[]

Techniques aside, The Son's general playstyle also features several characteristics that make him stand out from other playable characters. The first of these being that he swings several melee weapons at a slower speed than what their usual speed is (e.g. he swings the golf club much slower than the usual speed it swings at with most other playable characters).

The second and more notable characteristics is having several unique executions. His default execution is a stomping move, where The Son will quickly stomp on an enemy's head and grind his foot into their heads. This is a rather long execution like most other playable character's stomping executions (except for Martin Brown's stomping execution, which is quite fast).

While using the golf club, The Son will perform a unique execution where he will smash the club across an enemy's face in a golf-swinging posture (this execution is very similar to Jacket's scripted execution on Biker).

While using the baton, the execution The Son performs involves smacking the baton across the enemy's face three times, bludgeoning them to death. This execution is unique to the regular baton execution, where most playable characters will smash it down onto an enemy's head.

While using the machete, he can execute an enemy by decapitating them via hacking them three times in the neck with it (This execution is shared with Jacket's machete execution in the first game, although it is slower).

While using the butterfly knife, rather than simply slitting the enemy's throat, The Son will swiftly stab the enemy in the side of the neck once.

Achievements[]

Two achievements are directly linked to The Son's techniques: WHAT YOU LEAVE FOR YOUR SONS & FAMILY BUSINESS.

Events in Hotline Miami 2[]

The Son is first seen in the introduction to the Act 2 level No Mercy (November 21st), where he's shown to have a fondness to the Henchman, if not a full on friendship. He seems prepared to grant favors but when the Henchman expresses desires to quit, the Son has him clear out the newly Colombian-affiliated chop shop. The Son reminds the Henchman that he's free to come back any time and to try the "new product" of purple and green pills.

The Son re-appears in the outro to Death Wish (December 20th), where he kills Alex and Ash with a magnum, seemingly laughing. He then walks toward the side of the building the Fans had planned to jump from.

His third appearance is in the intro to Seizure (November 18th) in the Catastrophe act, where he tells the Henchman he's planning to attack a Colombian gang meeting he's been invited to in an effort to reclaim lost territory. Henchman expresses reservations, but backs off. The dialogue strangely implies that the Henchman goes with the Son to Seizure (Henchman "I'll do whatever you tell me too." Son: "Alright then. Let's go."), though he doesn't seem to.

In the Seizure outro, the Son is surrounded by strippers doing cocaine. He further implies that they did Seizure together ("We sure did a number on those guys, huh?"). He tells the Henchman that Mary is too good for him and that "The minute you get attached to anyone, you know you're fucked." However he says it's none of his business and gives Henchman some money to get Mary something nice.

During a bank robbery on December 7th he is confronted by apparitions of the characters from the first game's Showdown level, who ask him why he's here. He tells them that he wants to make them proud, but the apparition of the Father tells him "You're just like me, you won't get it until it's too late."

The next appearance is on December 14th, when Manny Pardo attempts to visit the Son, perhaps implying a partnership (possibly explaining Pardo's Colombian massacre at the docks four days prior and his knowledge of Petrov's whereabouts) and/or a desire of Pardo's to kill the Son to become famous. Regardless of his reasons, he's denied and the Son continues to the Colombian gang headquarters, wiping the majority of them out personally and letting his subordinates kill the Colombian gang leader and his guards.

After failing to make contact with Henchman and unwittingly giving his address to the Fans, he takes a large amount of the green-and-purple pills and goes into a mania-induced rampage, killing an unknown number of his own men. As the high continues, he comes across the semi-realistic animal versions of the Fans, first fighting Mark, Corey, Tony and finally Alex and Ash. In between the fights he sees warped images of jungle flora overtaking the building, wild animals having killed and feasted on his remaining men that were killed by the fans and not him, and a surreal rendition of the "Blood Money" toast, the vodka shots replaced with shotgun pellets. After killing all except Tony, he walks off the edge of the building's roof on what appears to him to be a rainbow bridge to Valhalla, while in reality he falls to his death.

Fall

His body after his fall.

After the scene Death Wish, his body can be seen on the ground of the building, covered with a white sheet in a pool of blood.

List of killed victims[]

This is a compiled list of how many kills The Son has performed in the series. Kills in Italics are unclear and merely up to interpretation. Kills in Bold are kills determined by the player's choice:

Overall, The Son has killed 207 enemies (213 if you count Blue Lips, the 2 bankers in Blood Money, the 2 captive Colombians seen in the intro of Take Over and himself).

Trivia[]

  • With the possible exceptions of Tony and Biker, The Son is the most visibly muscular player character in the series, his sleeves cut extra short to show off large biceps. However, The Son's gameplay is considerably more versatile and varied than Tony's and Biker's, even having the agility required to Roll Dodge.
  • The Bodyguard technique is a pair of broken glasses believed to be owned by his father's former bodyguard. The Katana that The Son starts with is also believed to be hers.
  • The Dirty Hands technique is a pair of spiked brass knuckles that resemble paws. This is a reference to his father's panthers, who could kill Jacket with only one swipe from their paws.
  • He is the one of the only two playable characters in Hotline Miami who is the leader of an organization (in his case, the Russian Mafia). The other one being Tony.
  • The Bloodline technique is a necklace made from a high caliber bullet. It is engraved with the date that his father and grandfather were murdered by Jacket. The ability itself is also a reference to the boss fight against his father, who also dual-wielded a pair of MP5s during his and Jacket's first & final confrontation.
  • Each of The Son's abilities are shared with the Fans with the exception of Alex & Ash.
  • He, Aubrey, Tony, and Biker are the only characters with scars in the Hotline Miami series.
  • He is the only player character in the Hotline Miami duology to be related to a boss character.
  • The Son's car appears to be a black and gold 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, which has the same paintjob and appearance as the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am used in the road film "Smokey and the Bandit".
    Torsoglitch

    A bug where the Son has an extra upper torso whilst aiming his MP5s vertically.

  • The Son swings and executes with the knife faster than other character. It is very possible that it could be a reference to the Russian Systema, which is a Russian martial art that the Red Army was taught.
  • There was a bug where if you aimed vertically whilst using the Bloodline technique, The Son would have appeared to have two upper torsos. However, this bug has since been fixed in a patch.
  • When wielding the fireaxe in Apocalypse, the sleeves of his suit are fully extended, and he is missing his red fingerless gloves.
  • His face is a reskin of The Father from the previous game, showing that he bears a strong resemblance to his deceased father.
  • He single-handedly kills all of the The Fans barring Tony (who he's implied to have glanced with shotgun pellets or otherwise scared off) during his drug-fueled rampage. Tony is later executed by Manny Pardo.
  • If you quickly re-press the RMB while aiming vertically, a bug will happen where Son's MP5s will disappear.
    Sonbugged

    Son at the start of Take Over with his MP5s non-existent.

  • The Son, Manny Pardo and Richter are the only three characters in the game (excluding H.M. Hammarin, who is exclusive to the level editor) that encounter more enemy factions than any other character in the game, the three of them being able to fight three enemy factions.
  • The Son has the second highest body count out of the playable characters in the series, just behind Jacket and in front of Richter.
  • The Son's top-right eyelid appears to be non-existent or shows signs of lack of feeling, possibly due to his scar. When he blinks, the bottom eyelid moves, but the top does not appear to.
  • In his face off against Corey, his revolver appears to emit bullet casings as it is fired, revolvers don’t emit casings anywhere else in the game so this likely isn’t a mistake and is a result of his high.
  • The Son was originally meant to have light brunette hair in a pony-tail[1]. The design was most likely changed so he'd resemble his father more.

References[]

  1. HLM2ConceptSprites
Playable Characters in the Hotline Miami Series
Hotline Miami

Jacket · Biker

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Martin Brown · Corey · Tony · Alex · Ash · Mark · Manny Pardo · Jake · Evan Wright · The Henchman · Beard · Richter · The Son · Jacket (Editor only) · Biker (Editor only) · H.M. Hammarin (Editor only)

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