Many players love Max Payne and its sequel Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne from Remedy Entertainment. However, not everyone accepted the vision demonstrated by the new developers in Max Payne 3. The first games were imbued with noir, but in the third part, gloomy New York was replaced by sunny Brazil, and the main character was greatly transformed.
The new installment was developed by Rockstar, known for the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises. Released in 2012, Max Payne 3 received positive reviews from the media and some players, but it failed to meet commercial expectations and never became a mega-hit.
During a recent conversation with IGN, Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser shared memories of working on Max Payne 3 — the process of creating such a game was very different from the studio's typical projects:
It was a linear game, so it was a little different from working on an open-world game — everything was a little more structured here. I really enjoyed the experience; I liked what we did in terms of design — how the game had almost no loading screens, how it felt like a 12-hour movie, some visual techniques with words displayed on the screen. I felt like we were creating a really cool digital noir, but the general opinion at the time was that people hated it.
Now Dan Houser believes he failed with Max Payne 3. He said that he knows Sam Lake — the creator of Max Payne — well, and thinks that players missed his script:
He is a very good person and truly talented. I thought we did a pretty good job with another Max Payne game. Some liked it, but many didn't. That means we made a mistake, or I made a mistake. I failed. My part of the work was not successful. The game is beautifully made, but it did not achieve the success it deserved. So I would say this: a significant part of this failure lies precisely with me — as one of the decision-makers, and as a writer, because people missed the style of his [Lake's] texts.