8 Heroic Video Game Characters Who Didn't Actually Affect The Plot

7. Jacket (Hotline Miami)

Having one of the most mind-bending twists in gaming history comes with endless levels of retrospection: Mainly, realising that because a good three quarters of the game takes place inside Jacket's mind, the larger ramifications of why you're massacring so many gang members gets cast to the wayside.

Jacket's story literally ends with him taking out a mob boss and having a cigarette while gazing out at the midnight Miami sky, forever wondering just what the hell the preceding few days' worth of cryptic phone calls and viscera were for.

The real ending comes not only from secondary character Rider interacting with the aforementioned phone callers, but even then, you need to have collected a number of puzzle pieces to trigger the final, expository conversation.

Without this wider context - only obtainable from Rider, as Jacket lives on in infamy, referenced heavily in the sequel - Hotline Miami is a bunch of supremely satisfying - yet ultimately pointless - thrill-kills.