What does it feel like to lose everything? Most of us will never know. But what would you do if you lost your job? Your true love? Your sanity? Your reasons for living? Rockstar’s long-missing noir hero, Max Payne, knows the answer to these questions.
Max has been absent from the video game landscape since the 2003 release of Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. The long‑awaited Max Payne 3 features a hero much different from the handsome character we once knew. This new Max is older and harder, marked with the scars of his fall to the bottom. While he’s still very much a violent man of action, the world around him has moved on and so has he. What would a man with nothing left to lose do to get one more chance at the good life? This question will ultimately be answered in Rockstar’s next epic adventure.
The Third Act
If you want to know how much has changed in the world of Max Payne, look no further than the picture on the top of this page. This bald, bearded man bears little resemblance to the character we followed through two successful games. He’s aged considerably since the tragic events of Max Payne 2, with a scarred face and thicker build. If not for the headline, it would be hard to recognize Max at all. Clearly, Rockstar Games, which is developing the game in-house for the first time since purchasing the rights from series creator Remedy, is not averse to taking chances with the franchise.
“It’s a tricky thing, because you’re taking this beloved franchise that we didn’t do originally,” comments Rockstar art director Rob Nelson. “You have to maintain the elements of it that are special and that people remember, but you also have to evolve. We’re not Remedy, but we have a lot of respect for what they did. We’re definitely looking back and trying to maintain every element that clicked with people eight or nine years ago and make it have the same impact now.”
It’s a difficult balancing act. How do you create a game that both respects the history of the franchise and creates a world that feels fresh to gamers in 2009?
“We’re used to having franchises that people expect a lot from and have a lot of pressure attached to them,” Nelson says. “We’ve learned to go with our gut and trust our instincts….we wanted to challenge ourselves.”
At Rockstar’s headquarters in New York, located in the hip SoHo district, we witnessed a world-exclusive first look at the game in action. If you expected a by-the-numbers sequel, prepare to be surprised. The third chapter of the Max Payne saga takes our hero places that he’s never gone before, while at the same time keeping an eye towards maintaining and improving the stylish gunplay that made his reputation. Like most Rockstar games, it’s clearly a labor of love (and just a little bit of mania).
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