Max Payne comes back, more rugged than ever.

Max Payne comes back, more rugged than ever.

Need to represent a bad time in a protagonist's life? Add beard.

The website for Max Payne 3, the second sequel to the frankly brilliant original Max Payne, has gone live, declaring it will be coming out this winter. It’s in development by Rockstar Vancouver, and appears to be taking Max out of New York and placing him somewhere… ‘else’. That this ‘else’ is ‘a city full of violence and bloodshed’ is only fitting really, as Max himself is also filled with violence and bloodshed. They kind of go hand in hand, those two. Of course, after the events of Max Payne 2, where literally everything goes to shit for him, he’s definitely going to be traumatised enough to grow a beard and move somewhere else. Maybe we won’t have any Captain Baseball Bat Boy hijinks, but hey, maybe there can be other mascot-based hilarity.

The fact Remedy aren’t developing it is a worry, but the fact that Rockstar are does go some way to assuaging such feelings. They’ve got heaps of money and clever technology, not least Euphoria, and while it’s not the acclaimed Rockstar North team, it’s bound to at least be somewhat enjoyable. I just hope they realise that Max Payne isn’t really about the slow motion deaths and walls of dead riddled with bullet holes, but it’s the atmosphere and noir-esque feel of the game that really made it so fun. If they keep the comic-book style narration, then hopefully they’re on the right track. The main worry I have so far is the lack of ‘PC’ at the bottom of the website teaser image. They do know it started here, right?

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