Chapter 1: Powered by Steam
It's been awhile since the whole "stuck in beacon" situation started. Team RWBY have the whole school at the palms of their hands, but what do they do? They sit down and play some video games straight from Earth! They already played through acclaimed titles such as Grand Theft Auto V and Call of Duty: Black Ops, and now they're just training to keep up their strength so once school starts again, they won't be weak.
After a hard day of training, Ruby was sitting on the open field by herself. It was lonely to the point where it feels like someone was watching her. She scrolled through the Internet of Earth from her laptop and found a little website called Steam. There, she browsed through many pages, each telling information about a game. There were also some crazy sales going on right now, from games with 25 to 50% deals. Ruby found one game that was reviewed positively and decided to show her fellow teammates to.
Blake was reading Ninjas of Love for the 50th time while Yang goes on a crazy murder spree in Grand Theft Auto V. Weiss walks in and sits on her bed and moans "I'm not going to complain or anything, but how much longer before school starts?" Weiss asked.
"Give it a few more weeks," Blake said.
"Are you they'll be cool about us going through their stuff? I mean, it's not like you can get a PS3 around here."
"We'll be fine, there's like 500 in the back," Ruby said as she walks in with some cables.
"What're you doing?" Yang asked.
"I'mma hook up the TV with my computer, there's a whole online website I can access to play games. There is one I'm interested in playing. Of course I have to pay for it, but it's like 50% off right now!" Ruby exclaimed, once she finished up honking up the computer to the TV, it shows the app called Steam being activated. "Oh yeah, there's an app called Steam I must download for me to play this game… It took awhile."
Ruby went into the store page and looked up "Hotline Miami." Before she can access the full page, it asks her for her date of birth. She lied and went to the full page. "Hotline Miami, sounds like a porno," Blake said.
"Of course, it does. In your mind," Yang said.
The banner showed a man in a pig mask holding a hooker as guys in white suits try to attack him. Meanwhile a biker is in the corner reading a porn magazine. "Why did you picked this game?" Weiss asked.
"I don't know, the font they use was colorful, and I thought this would be a cop/detective game, you know with hotline being a phone service and that phone service calling a detective..." Ruby kept going on and on until she said "It looks like a game Yang would enjoy."
"I'm already interested in this game," Yang said, intrigued.
"So will you play it?"
"How about you play it, you need to play an Earth game."
"What about me?!" Weiss exclaimed.
"Wait for your turn ice princess," Yang said.
"How about we take turns?" Blake suggested.
"Not a bad idea, who'll go first?" Ruby asked.
"A quick rock, papers, and scissors match!" Weiss declared. Ruby and Weiss faced each other, with eyes burning they both pulled their fists and Ruby formed scissors and Weiss formed paper. "Aw, drats…"
Ruby hummed as she bought the game and waited for the entire download to finish. It took awhile and it was only 10% complete after a few minutes. "Should we watch the trailer of the game?" Blake suggested.
"I think it'll give us a good idea on what's going on," Yang said, agreeing with Blake.
Ruby goes to a website called Youtube and typed in the search bar Hotline Miami. She quickly clicked on the announcement trailer.
Hotline Miami announcement trailer
The trailer starts with the logos of Devolver Digital, which had a westernized font. Then it shifts to the Dennaton Games logo, which has two half's of two people's face slamming onto each other with bullets, cards and flame form up behind them and it says the studio's name, Dennaton Games.
"Neat logo," Yang complimented
Some smooth music you typically here in a lounge played over the sequence. Telling by the length of the video, the team can kinda predict something to swiftly change the pace of the trailer. The screen transitions a store with a bearded man behind the counter and a man in the jacket who seems to be buying something. The graphics and look are totally different from GTA and CoD. It's all pixelated to look a bit old, like those early video calling screens where the quality of the video call was pixelated. It's perspective is different, instead of over-the-shoulder and first-person, it's bird's-eye-view of the area.
"This is totally different then what I imagined…" Ruby muttered.
"It looks really colorful," Weiss said.
"Well, at least it's art style is drastically different," Blake said. Text appears on the bottom and the picture of speaker appeared on the right. There was no one taking.
"I guess it was made in a smaller budget," Yang said.
"Hm, I guess we'll read it?" Weiss said confused.
Bearded man: Hey dude! Good to see you again! Did you hear about the "massacres" the other night?
"Telling by the quotations, one of those two people are associated to the massacres," Blake said.
Bearded man: A bunch of Ruskies I heard. No loss, if you ask me!
"Ruskies?" Yang pondered.
"I guess he means Russians," Blake said.
"What's up with the games being against Russians?" Ruby asked.
"I don't know, propaganda, or maybe Russia did something really bad in the modern day that we have no idea because we are still recently new to that other place," Weiss explained.
Bearded man: They say some maniac wearing a rubber mask did it!
"If I remember, the character wore a pig mask," Yang remembered,
"So we play as a psychopath, again," Blake said.
Bearded man: Sounds like a scene straight from a slasher flick, heh!
"More like a plot then a single, individual scene," Ruby said.
"I'm concerned about your attitude for the whole massacre situation, you're acting like this whole thing is a damn movie!" Weiss exclaimed, "If they run out of Russians, then they'll start coming after Americans then."
The game cuts to a man wearing a jacket similar to the character earlier who was silent. He wore a pig mask and walked down from a hallway. "Straight from a slasher flick," Blake said.
"I guess we do play as a masked psychopath, nice!" Yang exclaimed. It cuts to him hiding behind a wall as a man in a white suit walks past holding a weapon. Before anything happens, it cuts to a room with a yellow light over a man wearing a chicken mask.
Chicken masked man: Do you enjoy hurting other people?
"Yang does when she's pissed!" Ruby pointed at her sister.
The game cuts to the man in a pig mask killing people with a shotgun with points going all over the screen, adding to the score. It cuts to him wearing a snake mask and knocking someone with a door, adding more to the score.
"So we're awarded for hurting people, love it!" Yang exclaimed.
"Your sister must be suffering from GTA V psychopathic syndrome," Weiss whispered to Ruby.
"She has been ever since she started playing the game," Ruby man grabs a knife and slits the person's throat.
"Wow, I'm glad this is stylized. If this was made with a more realistic art style, it might've been a bit fucked up," Blake said.
"This is already fucked up," Weiss commented. It cuts back to the pig mask, whee he knocks a person out and slams his head against the couch, smashing it to bits. It cuts to the same room with red lights instead and focuses on an owl.
Owl masked man: YOU MAKE ME SICK!
"Someone with standards, nice," Weiss complimented, seeing that there's someone in-game that recognizes terrible stuff that happens. The next clip shows a man with a baseball bat swinging it around, killing a chain of enemies from room to room.
"I guess speed and reaction is going to be a major skill required to beat this game," Blake said, The game cuts to the same room under blue lighting and a horse is speaking.
Horse masked man: As of lately, you've done some terrible things…
"Thanks, I take pride in my work," Yang joked. The game continues to show the man wearing multiple animal masks killing people in a variety of ways. One shows him wearing a horse mask and shooting everyone with a gun, next shows him wearing a snake mask slamming someone with something.
"I don't know, this game does look exciting for a game about endless killing," Weiss said.
"It's weird, but then again, Yang and I killed endless hordes of enemies already," Blake said. A man behind the killer comes up to him and strikes at him with a single blow, killing him. It transitions to the man without a mask kneeling. It then cuts to the title.
Hotline Miami
Coming Soon
"I think this might be a fun game game, already starts with some really kickass techno music and blood, two of my favorite things," Yang said.
"So you'll play it?" Ruby wondered.
"Nah, I'm going to let you handle this one."
"Then it's me, right?" Weiss wondered.
"Like I said, we take turns," Blake said.
"Should we watch the next trailer?" Ruby asked.
"If the game isn't done loading, then yes," Weiss said. Ruby checked on the game progress, 28%. Alright, they have a bit of spare time. Ruby clicked on the next trailers title Hotline Miami - The Masks.
Hotline Miami - The Masks
The trailer begins with the Dennaton Games logo and Devolver Studios. It cuts to the room with the chicken, horse and owl, with different shades of colors glowing over them. The chicken was yellow, the owl is red, and the horse is blue.
"This is some speculation, what if we work for a ring of assassins and we're the one in the middle, because he oddly wear the same clothes as the main character does," Yang speculated.
"From what I'm also guessing, we might play as multiple characters too, with each mask representing a personality," Blake added.
Chicken masked man: Here's a question for you… Why are you wearing that mask?
"To seal our identity. I mean, it's pretty obvious that supervillains and superheroes where something that makes them stand out from the crowd," Ruby said. A gunshot sound effect transitions to a image of a elephant mask with the name the name said "can take a hit…:
"So we can take multiple hits at once?" Blake wondered.
"That'll be neat to have extra health," Yang said. The game shows the same character from the last trailer murdering others in brutal ways. Since it's the same character, this makes Blake believe that the masks sorta represent a persona of the character, but that's just speculation. The next mask is called Zack and it says below "longer combos." Seeing how the team doesn't know the term of combos in video games, they scratch their heads what it means. The next mask is called Carl and his supposed ability is to start with a drill. The clip shows the character wearing the Zack mask, killing everyone.
"Drills aren't really an effective weapon…" Ruby said. The clip shows the man wearing a Carl mask, knocking down someone and drilling the skull with his weapon. Pixelated blood splatters across the floor.
"You can't deny it's a really brutal tool in killing…" Yang said and Ruby couldn't help but agree. The clip shows the Horse masked man asking the player the question.
Horse masked man: What are you hiding?
The game is in a different colored filter, with red darkness surrounding the screen.
"Is this suppose to show a stealth level that's going to be in the game?" Weiss asked. It shows the mask to be Oscar, who is a mole. The description says "turn out the lights." The game shows the character wearing an Oscar mask, endlessly killing everyone around him in a really dark lighting.
"So does his mask suppose to make this happen?" Ruby wondered.
"Makes sense since moles can be blind," Blake said. The game shows the man in an Owl mask asking him a question.
Owl masked man: Who are you, really?
the game shows the main character with a pistol and shooting down the hordes of enemies, executing the last one. It then does a gun sound effect, transitioning it to the title.
"I guess masks play a key gameplay mechanic here," Yang said.
"I wonder if there's a unicorn!" Ruby exclaimed cheerfully, hoping there is.
"They don't exist…" Weiss muttered.
"Maybe on Earth they do," Ruby said.
"Speaking of Earth, how about we look up some gaming terms, because not knowing what combos are is really bugging me," Blake said. The team couldn't help but agree. So they do look up a quick search on video games and a bit more research. They know 8-bit to 64-bit graphics, the major companies in the industry such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the many generations of consoles, the ESRB rating scale, combos, first, second, and third person, the many genres such as fighting, shooting, and adventures and etc. (AN: I sorta made them do research because there's a shit ton of games with different mechanics and such, and the team is sorta being oblivious to those mechanics and such. I want them to go in with some knowledge of what's a combo and points system.)
"Alright, we're done after four or five hours of endless research, is the game ready?" Weiss asked, ready to move on to the actual game.
"Yeah, it is," Ruby said.
"Games are not sexist!" Yang exclaimed as she printed out a picture of well-hated SJW amongst the gaming community. (AN: Take your pick, it's either Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn)
"I guess Yang is ready…" Ruby muttered as she started the game.
Author's Note:
This is the planned project I plan on working over Thanksgiving Break, chapters are done easy since there's not much story in the game, making it less of a hassle to do because there's no long conversations nor cutscenes, maybe a bit, but not really much. Anyways, hope you support this series and like my handy photo editing skills. I worked really hard on it (sarcasm). I plan on pasting RWBY characters over, but it be weird to put teenage girls over psychopathic killers. I plan doing the slight changes on the rest of the games. Anyways, hope you support this series and I hope I can finish this in a nick of time.