Midnight Animal

The gameplay was going to be similar to that of Hotline Miami, with the player traversing various levels (referred to as "chapters") while massacring everyone inside. Unique to Midnight Animal, however, would have been the introduction of up to 60 weapons for the player to use. The game was intended to utilize more dialogue and interactive elements than the original games combined, while also having roughly the same amount of levels.[3][4] The games combat system was also going to be redesigned to maximize player combat, and the game was going to feature a dynamic lighting engine.[5]

While the plot of the mod is unknown, it was set to take place 30 years after the events of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number in a post-apocalyptic United States, ran by the conspiracy group 50 Blessings.[3]

The mod was being developed by Spencer Yan and was first revealed in September 2015 with the release of an official trailer, and the game was slated for an 18 August 2016.[6][7] The games creator was given special permission from Dennaton Games to use the source code of the original games and offered to publish the result on Steam, on the condition that the game was free and the source code remained secret. Spencer Yan and publications such as PCGamesN referred to the game as an unofficial "Hotline Miami 3".[6][4][8] The game was also planned to feature new, unique music from the composers of the original games.[4]

In June 2016 the mod was delayed indefinitely, with Yan citing the reason being health problems in a now deleted Steam Community post. The game was abandoned for five months by the creator, and during this time, Spencer Yan would take heavy inspiration from the Persona series and began to incorporate it into Midnight Animal, renaming the project to Midnight Animal: a Story of Love and Forgetting in Four Parts and continuing development of the mod.[6]