Max Payne 3 Message Board older than one year ago

Max is back! Screenshots from April, 2011 reveal more teases about Max's long-awaited third appearance!

New screens of the surprisingly real Max Payne 3 bring us a variety of looks from Max's repertoire. Bald, tank-topped Max, as seen in his 2009 reveal, makes an appearance, along with "classic" leather-jacket Max, Max in a Hawaiian shirt, a t-shirt, and a button-up shirt and tie.

What a versatile fellow! At least, in terms of clothing. He's pretty much holding both arms straight out and shooting people 100 percent of the time, no matter how he's dressed.

#rockstargames In a series of screens you might have seen in the latest issue of Edge Magazine, Max Payne shows himself to be a man of many faces, outfits, and hairstyles. More »

#rockstargames Finally, some concrete details about Rockstar Games' plans for Max Payne 3 are emerging, thanks to the latest issue of Edge magazine, which may make Max fans feel less uneasy about the change in direction for the decade-old series. More »

Last week's Max Payne 3 teaser from Rockstar has turned out to be a surprisingly timely lead-in for Edge Magazine's latest cover story. Edge posted the cover art for its new issue today, featuring Payne (back to a full head of hair), and noted that the magazine would hit UK newsstands on April 12. Of course, it's already in the hands of some subscribers -- and you know what that means.

While few details can be gleaned from the short excerpt that Edge itself posted online, full scans and article summaries have emerged across forums and gaming sites, spilling all the beans. The Edge preview gives no indication that, even during all this time laying low, MP3 has undergone any starts and stops -- it's still set in São Paulo, Brazil, and Payne will still be all bald and brutish during points in the chronologically nonlinear plot (the game's missions are going to bounce around).

Instead, the article suggests that Rockstar's meticulous pursuit of perfection has slowed development to a crawl (the release date is still noted as "to be confirmed"). Lead development studio Rockstar Vancouver has labored over delivering "a more fully realized cinematic experience," according to art director Rob Nelson (in Edge's excerpt), using NaturalMotion's Euphoria animation engine to blend the cinematic and interactive elements of the game into a seamless experience -- and Edge marvels at the result in the level demonstrated to the magazine.

"And though this is a more linear game for us," Nelson adds, "people want to be constantly surprised and entertained in new ways." Of course, "the main mechanic is still shooting" and MP3 will retain the series' core gameplay features -- bullet-time, bullet-cam, shoot-dodge, dual-wielding and health pills -- while building in new elements, like a cover system that's still being tweaked. (No further word on multiplayer.)

Perhaps nothing is more indicative of Rockstar's commitment to getting the game right than the decision to bring back James McCaffrey to voice Payne (despite an earlier report to the contrary). Not only his voice, but McCaffrey's full acting abilities will be on display, as he and other actors have been recorded in group mo-cap sessions. Rest assured, Max Payne 3 is another big-budget Rockstar production that sounds to be humming along in high gear. "He's coming" -- no doubt about it now.

[Image source: Edge; see full cover art after the break]

Some decent information is arriving about Max Payne 3, in the wake of some shitty screenshots being released. EDGE magazine have got a giant old feature about it, and through the power of copying out some bits, we can tell you some snippets about the game below. We’d also recommend you rush out and buy a copy of EDGE, as that will assuage our guilt.

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#geteducated Upcoming action game Max Payne 3 is set in Brazil. Rockstar, the folks making Max Payne 3, are not a Brazilian studio, so that meant one thing: research. More »

#rockstargames It's been a while since we've heard from Rockstar Games and Max Payne 3, a game that's still without a release date. But Rockstar promised it's "still working hard on Max" and to deliver "news in the coming months" late last year. More »

Rockstar Games would like you to know that Max Payne 3 is still a game that it plans to release. At least, that’s the message I’m extrapolating from a recent Rockstar Games tweet, which contains the words “he’s coming” alongside two new images of the titular hero of the series.   
 




It’s easy to forget that this game is still in the works. After a stunning reveal in 2009 that showed off the grimier and much flabbier side of Max Payne, the project suffered several postponements. It was, at one time, set to release in the first half of 2010, though to be fair, this was the same year that publisher Rockstar and its sister publisher, 2K Games, released three big titles: Mafia II, BioShock 2, and Red Dead Redemption. Now, though, it's uncertain what the release window for Max Payne 3 actually is, and the publisher has, to this point, been more focused on putting out info related to L.A. Noire.

As for what these new screens show us, it appears as though Rockstar might be toning down the grizzled and broken look of 2009’s puffy Max. His chest and forearms are looking pretty good and that shirt? Dude is styling. Wouldn't want to get in his way, that's for sure.     

You don’t visit, you don’t write, you don’t even sodding call for two years, Maxwell, and then without warning you send us a photo of you in the dark, looking all mucky and miserable, and another picture of some squinty bloke with a gun? Great. Thanks, Max. Thanks ever so, yeah?

“He’s coming,” Rockstar say. Really? I thought it was just the way he was standing.

In theory, this is still due on PC – it was at least originally announced for it. You can see the other pic below. (more…)

Some of the more pessimistic members of staff had almost given Max Payne 3 up for dead. A game gets delayed a few times, stops showing up in release calendars, and you start to expect the worst. This morning Rockstar went on the offensive, tweeting two new screens from the game with a simple, definitive message: "He's coming."

The "he," of course, refers to the titular hero, only a much less slovenly version of Max than we were exposed to when the game was first revealed.

It seems like development of Max Payne 3 is running even more slowly than a slow-motion dive from its protagonist. It's already been delayed more than once, and when Take-Two failed to mention it at all during its financial conference call earlier this week, and it didn't appear on the company's release schedule, we feared the worst. Said fears appear unfounded, however, as Take-Two reps have informed Kotaku that the publisher is "still working hard" on Max Payne 3, and more information is expected "in the coming months."

Yeah, it's not much, but at least we know Max isn't dead. Not yet, at least.

Rockstar Games' delayed Max Payne 3 was curiously absent from publisher Take-Two's 2011-2012 release schedule today, but reps assure Kotaku "We're still working hard on Max, and we'll have more news in the coming months." More »

We have a winner! Well, a "winner." Back in March, Take-Two named four titles: Max Payne 3, Mafia II, L.A. Noire, and Civilization V, and floated the possibility that one of them would be delayed out of fiscal 2010 (which ends October 31). Today, the publisher revealed that the near-illusory Max Payne 3, which had already faced a delay, was the one.

No further specifics about the delay were revealed in the company's earnings release, but Take-Two affirmed that the other three titles are still on track. Mafia II currently has a release date of August 24, and L.A. Noire and Civ V are set for the fiscal fourth quarter -- which means they should be out by the end of October. Though, just because Max Payne took the (slow-motion) delay bullet this time doesn't mean the other games are safe.

Third title slips out of fiscal fourth quarter.

Max Payne 3 has been delayed until some time after Halloween 2010, according to a press release from the game's publisher issued today. More »

#itsadate Take-Two Interactive has a very busy fiscal fourth quarter, pegging four big games, L.A. Noire, Mafia II, Max Payne 3 and Sid Meier's Civilization V, for release between August and October. However, one of those games might not make it. More »

As the week goes on, more and more current and former Rockstar Games employees have come forward to us (and other outlets) with information corroborating the repeated allegations of substandard working conditions at the developer's various studios. Today, however, we received news from a former Rockstar Vancouver employee regarding the status of "late 2010" title Max Payne 3 -- a title currently in development at the Canadian dev house. According to our source (who, unsurprisingly, asked to be kept anonymous), "Virtually everything said in the original 'Rockstar wives' letter and by current and former Rockstar San Diego employees in the comments applies to my experience at Rockstar Vancouver." The source also alleges an "August 2010" completion window for development of the game, though the source isn't optimistic that'll happen. "The game's story just went through another total re-write earlier this month (the third that I am aware of in the past two years) and that [means] the team would have to have all of the content done by April or May to make that August release date." Further claims about the studio range from an "enforced crunch mode through to the end of the project" that results in "14 - 16 hour work days, six or seven days a week" to a canceled two weeks of vacation over the past holidays. We've once again contacted Rockstar Games for comment and have yet to hear back as of publishing. If you are an employee of Rockstar Games and would like to tell us more about your experiences, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

During the always thrilling Take-Two Interactive quarterly investors call this afternoon, the ever-elusive Mafia 2 received an almost, kinda sorta release date: Q3 2010. When applying Take-Two's Q3 dates to the Gregorian calendar that most folks on this planet use, we can infer that the game will arrive somewhere between May 1 and July 31. This isn't to say that the title is a shoe-in for release, though, with company CEO Strauss Zelnick saying the game is "scheduled to fall in our third quarter." Remember when Max Payne 3 was scheduled for release in Winter of 2009? Exactly.

In a new financial earnings and projection report, Take-Two has dished out news of Max Payne 3's release. The game's been pushed back -- we like to imagine in incredibly slow and dramatic fashion -- to the company's fiscal Q4 2010. In real time, that translates to a three-month period spanning August-October, 2010. The game was previously pegged for an unlikely Winter 2009 release. Based on what we've seen of Max Payne 3 so far, we'd say that bumping back its release is a good move. Max is in serious need of some Jazzercise and a decent dry cleaner, so this extra time will hopefully get him into better shape to handle the countless waves of bad guys he'll be indiscriminately shooting in the face.

In a new earnings projection report, Take-Two has dished out news of Max Payne 3's release. The game's been pushed back -- we like to imagine in incredibly slow and dramatic fashion -- to the company's fiscal Q4 2010. In real time, that translates to a three-month period spanning August-October, 2010. The game was previously pegged for an unlikely Winter 2009 release. Based on what we've seen of Max Payne 3 so far, we'd say that pushing its release back is a good thing. Max is in serious need of some Jazzercise and a good dry cleaner, so this extra time will hopefully get him into better shape to handle the countless waves of bad guys he'll be indiscriminately shooting in the face.

Third installment now coming later next year

A lot of fans of the Max Payne series have been hesitant to get completely excited about Rockstar's third installment in the series, largely due to the unfamiliar setting of San Paolo, Brazil, and the obvious aesthetic changes undergone by the game's titular anti-hero. Perhaps their fears will be abated by a recent Game Informer preview of the title, which analyzes the big differences between the first two installments and the boldly redesigned threequel. The preview mentions a few intriguing gameplay additions, including improved Bullet Time physics (thanks largely to the implementation of the Euphoria engine), and a cover system, which the game's devs promised would be optional. The article also explains the aforementioned aesthetic shifts. For instance, we learned that this older version of Max Payne isn't actually chubby. His beefier frame can be attributed to muscle, not obesity. That makes sense -- a diet consisting solely of whiskey and painkillers probably isn't loaded with saturated fats.

Now with 100% less Wahlberg.