Your first Hotline Miami mod

This tutorial teaches the core concepts of Hotline Miami modding and how to setup the Editor.

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Get your tools!

If you're new to this install the wad Explorer and later the Editor. They are the core utilites that let you mod Hotline Miami.

Shoutouts to muster128 for the patched version that kickstarted the Editor project.

If nothing comes up when you launch, switch the base wad to the hlm2_data_desktop.wad file in the games installed directory

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Core Concepts

This section goes over the types of game files we are free to manipulate.

Game Resources

When you view the base wad file archive's (the hlm2_data_desktop.wad file located in the games installed directory) contents you will see a few different kinds of data a few key ones are:

• The Atlases/ folder has all of the games sprite graphics. In here are .png texture pages with a .meta sprite atlas file of the same name. The .meta files are just a big cookie cutter for the sprites on the texture page.

• The Fonts/ folder has the fonts used throughout the game. Just like the Atlases/ folder you have a .png character page followed by an .fnt (xml formatted) atlas.

• The Sounds/ folder has every sound in the game. Sounds must be in a .wav format.

Hotline Miami modding begins with the base hlm2_data_desktop.wad. This .wad file is an uncompressed file archive storing all of Hotline Miami's resources. It holds every texture, shader, sound, font, sprite, tile, level, object, and dialogue line in the game! This is the file that the Explorer and Editor should reference when making modifications.

Mods

All Hotline Miami mods are saved as .patchwad files. Fun fact, Patchwads are literally just a WAD Archives with the word "patch" thrown in the file extension. The key difference is that instead of storing all of the games assets it only contains the modified duplicates of the originals, a patch.

Most mods need to be loaded at game launch and will need to be placed and located in your users Documents/My Games/HotlineMiami2/Mods folder.

If you've downloaded a level from the Steam Workshop you might be able to find a patchwad in a special little folder called mods in said levels workshop content folder.

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The Editor

For Downloads the Github's releases page has up to date versions.

The Editor is like if the Explorer did cocaine and got dark mode. It borrows a lot of concepts and design from the Exlporer, so modders of old can take advantage of the familiarity, but does so much more. It allows you achieve what was previously thought impossible.

Initial Setup

Like the Explorer, the Editor nees a base wad to reference. To do so is the same as the Editor, File/Switch base wad and locate your base wad.