Remedy Entertainment sold the rights to Max Payne to Rockstar Games, which had a grand vision for the third game. Max Payne 3 was released, sold millions, and earned the praise of many. But Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser believes Max Payne 3 got some things wrong.
The upcoming Max Payne remakes have Remedy back at the helm and are being developed with Rockstar Games. The latter took over the franchise with the third mainline game, and Dan Houser, who’s making more media appearances than ever this year, explained why he isn’t as high on Max Payne 3.
Dan Houser Believes Aspects of Max Payne 3 Were a ‘Failure”
In an interview with IGN, Houser, who has since founded Absurd Ventures, talked about Max Payne 3, Rockstar’s involvement with the game, and ultimately why he thought “the consensus at the time was that people hated it.”
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Here’s what he said:
“So I got that completely wrong. I know Sam Lake well, and he’s a very good guy and really talented. I thought we’d done a good job of doing another Max Payne game. Some people liked it; lots didn’t. So we got it wrong, or I got it wrong. I failed. My bit was not a success. The game is beautifully made, and it wasn’t as successful as it should have been. So I would say a large amount of that failure was on me as one of the people making the decisions and also as the writer, when people really missed his writing.”
He also added:
“It was a linear game, so it was a little different from writing an open-world game, a little more structured. I really enjoyed that as an experience. I loved what we did design-wise, the way the game didn’t have loads, the way it felt like a 12-hour movie, some of the visual stuff we did with words on screen. I felt we were creating a really cool digital noir experience, and the consensus at the time was that people hated it.
Max Payne 3 has shipped over four million copies and is rated critically alongside the first two games. Is Houser being too harsh on himself?
If you played Max Payne 3, did you think it was a ‘failure’? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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