Hello Neighbor 2 is a Stealth Puzzle Game released on December 6th, 2022. Being a Sequel to the first game, 2 features the titular Neighbor, Theodore Peterson, as the overarching antagonist, who's still holding the Missing Child, his own son Aaron, hostage.
The game focuses on a Detective trying to find and save the Missing Child, who's held captive by the Neighbor, Theodore Peterson. While the endgame goal is made clear upon finding where Peterson lives, it's preceded by several other locations that each hold a key to progress, all of which requires solving various puzzles while trying to hide from the resident of each building.
The game was preceded by two demos that feature a different antagonist in The Guest: the first an early alpha known as Hello Guest, where you play as a Nightwatch that's keeping vandals out of a theme park while avoiding The Guest; and the officially labelled Hello Neighbor 2 demo, where you have to break into the house of The Guest to uncover its secret.
Hello Guest and Hello Neighbor 2 provides the following examples:
- Alternate Reality Game: The initial Prototype version of the game was hidden behind an ARG event in Secret Neighbor, where it was locked behind a ZIP file — download found on the Hello Neighbor website's secret URL (/HGP) — and required a code to even open. By going through a series of steps in Secret Neighbor, 1/10th of the 40 character code would be revealed, and once it's completed and inputted into the ZIP, it would unveil and would allow the user to play the Hello Guest prototype.
- Cliffhanger: Alpha 1 ends on this, with the Player Character getting apprehended by a mysterious detective before it cuts to black.
- Don't Look At Me: The Guest can only approach the player if they aren't looking directly at them, otherwise they'll get scared off.
- Player Headquarters: The first required location to go to is a Security Office, which comes equipped with a Locker that allows the player to store any item grabbed to use for subsequent night shifts.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Losing your items when tossed outside by the Guest results in crows hovering over the discarded items to denote their position and be subsequently easier to find.
- Getting caught by the Guest isn't an immediate setback, as while he's dragging the player character to the closest window or door to toss them outside, the player is able to knock the Guest down and let go by throwing an object at the back of its head, giving the player time to get away unscathed.
- Discretion Shot: The Guest kidnapping the costumed kids is not directly shown; they're seen prowling on the doorway roof above them, with its leap and subsequent apprehension blocked by a missing poster obscuring Quinton's binoculars, soon after cutting back to the Guest carrying them in a garbage bag.
- Missing Child: Alpha 1.5 features three kids in costume getting captured and locked away in the attic by the Guest.
- Cliffhanger: As Aaron forgives his father for holding him hostage and subsequently tries to free him from the crow fixture pinning him down, Quinton is subsequently knocked out and carried away by an unknown third-party.
- Demoted to Extra: The Guest, a prominent antagonist in the prior demos and alphas, is only featured in the beginning as an obstacle that causes the Detective to crash his car into a barn, leading into the tutorial. They never appear in the game afterwards.
- Deus ex Machina: By the end, after Quinton unlocks the front door and goads Aaron to escape, Theodore's attempt at apprehending them both gets interrupted by the large crow fixture above suddenly losing stability and crashing down on him.
- Foreshadowing: One of the in-between mission dreams Quinton has is of the crow fixture in the museum suddenly coming to life, breaking free from its cables and diving at the player. That same crow fixture instead inexplicably falls onto the Neighbor by the climax of the game.
- Missing Child: The main goal of the game is tied to this trope, with Quinton the Detective attempting to rescue said missing child, Aaron, from his own father.
- No Ending: The game infamously had no proper ending cutscene upon release, instead cutting to a black screen with text congratulating the player and promising of things to come.
- Nominal Villain: Most of the people (aside from the Neighbor himself) are just average people who are trying to keep a total stranger out of what they deemed not their business — the cop in particular trying to preserve the crime scene that was the Neighbor's original house. Regardless of their intentions, they're one way or another in the way of the Player Character trying to save the Missing Child from the Neighbor.
- Starter Villain: The Cop that's guarding the Neighbor's former house, being the first instance of somebody guarding the site you gotta hide from or else they'll kick you out and set you back.
