Max Payne and its sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, are two of the most influential third-person shooters ever made. They propelled Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment into the spotlight as one of the most exciting game-making studios. So it was also going to be a challenge for another developer to pick up the third part of this trilogy. If you have Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption under your belt, you might want to give it a try.
That’s what Dan Houser, former Rockstar vice president and writer of Max Payne 3, thought, and while enjoying the process of making it, he now admits that it didn’t really accomplish its goal. Although it was well received by critics, the 2012 game underperformed commercially and was not a huge hit with gamers. While Max Payne 3 is an excellent shooter in its own right, some have questioned whether it matches the tone of its heavily noir-influenced predecessors, instead trading the dark, introspective weirdness of Remedy’s New York games for a more intense, colorful, action-packed approach.
“It was a linear game, so it was a little different than writing an open-world game, a little more structured,” Houser told IGN as part of our IGN30 icon series. “I really enjoyed that experience. I loved what we did design-wise, the way the game didn’t have a lot going on, the way it felt like a 12-hour movie, some of the visuals we did with words on screen. I felt like we were creating a really cool digital noir experience, and the consensus at the time was that people hated it.
“So, I was completely wrong,” Houser admitted. “I know Sam Lake (creator of Max Payne) well, and he’s a really good guy and really talented. I thought we did a good job making another Max Payne game. Some people liked it, a lot of people didn’t like it. So we were wrong, or I was wrong. I failed. My part was not a success. The game is beautifully made, and it wasn’t as successful as it should have been. So I would say that a A lot of that failure was on me as one of the people making the decisions and also as a writer, when people really missed his writing.
Max Payne 3 definitely has a different tone than what came before it, but I still have a lot of love for it. Max Payne 2 remains one of my favorite games to this day due to the storytelling contained within its murky world, but there’s no denying that Rockstar brought something new and flashy nearly a decade later by taking the character to Brazil.
However, that bullet time still feels so smooth to trigger, and if that level of polish can be brought to Remedy’s upcoming remakes of the first two in the trilogy, then they can’t come soon enough. We last heard about the project over a year ago, when the studio revealed it was in the works. “complete production” and that “the collaboration with Rockstar Games remains close and productive”.
Of course, Rockstar currently has its plate full with the impending launch of GTA 6 on November 19. To learn more about GTA 6, you can read our full interview with Rob Nelson, co-head of Rockstar studiohow the game will address the current political climateAnd why Dan Houser says he won’t play it.
Simon Cardy is an editor at IGN who can mostly be found lurking around open-world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing over Tottenham Hotspur State and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
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