What Do I Want in a Max Payne Remake? (Patreon)

For those that don't know, there's a bit of a dream scenario regarding the Max Payne franchise recently, which is nice, giving that as a fanboy, I would've gotten excited for a Short Story published on Archive Of Our Own what with the lack of material lately.

Remedy themselves is remaking Max Payne 1&2 in their purposed built Northlight image, funded by Rockstar. Two of the best Action games ever made being remade by a team who's still making notable titles with the support of one of the biggest publishers sounds great on paper, and because all we have is paper right now, it is great!

For as much as I adore Max Payne 1&2, and believe each's gameplay actually holds up almost as well as Halo, I'd be lying if the rest of the experience hasn't aged, primarily Max Payne 1.

Best case scenario for these remakes would be where both those who couldn't get into the originals and who love the originals are able to love this latest version.

Though I've gotta be honest, the reason I'm setting this stage, is to avoid it.

I got lots of @'s on twitter and DM's regarding this news, which is pretty cool. I'm not complaining about people associating me with Max Payne. It's just that I couldn't really share everybody else's enthusiasm regarding this news.

To me, Max Payne 1&2 are games that are timelessly of their time, like DOOM, Quake, and Apogee's Duke Nukem before it. There's a unique style to its comic book panels, developer face-scans, and absurdity to its gunplay and physics. I simply can't imagine going from Northlight in-engine gameplay to a comic panel with Sam Lake's Mom holding a BB Gun.

These remakes then are going to have to be a total reimagining, like the inappropriately named Resident Evil 2 Remake.

In that case, what would I want in a remake of one of my favorite games?

1. Perfected Third Person Action

Max Payne 2 in particular still feels fantastic. Its bullet-time effect that slows you down with each kill might be broken as hell from a balancing standpoint, but dear lord, is it so much fun to pull off, and somehow managed to be a unique experience.

For all the Max Payne clones which came out in the early 2000s, none of them have stuck around, and weirdly, despite Max Payne being a third person shooter that's even less complex than Half Life, it's gameplay has rather lacked iteration over the years.

Max Payne 3 was the closest we got, and made some really fantastic improvements, mainly in the dynamic animations and ragdolls, which kept combat fun throughout the game due to no death ever being exactly the same.

However, Rockstar's hefty character weight really dampens the sense of flow in Max Payne 3, and it's something Remedy have avoided in all of their games but most notably, Control.

Control might be one of the best feeling games on the market today, its movement, shooting, and weapons feel tight as a drum, so the idea of all three of those being imported into a game with the original Max Payne atmosphere, duel-wielding bullet-hoses, and leaping through shattered glass, is really appealing.

2. Fidelity for Character in Levels

What the hell does this mean?

Both Max Payne's were graphical powerhouses for their time. Obviously, they've aged since then, but they did plant the seeds for locations which could be extremely unique today. Max Payne 2 for instance has Vlad's renovated restaurant "Vodka", Mona's funhouse, the Construction Site, and Woden's mansion.

All of them look rather flat by modern standards, but, with modern tools like the Northlight engine, there's a lot of room for enhancements to be made in these levels.

Obviously, you don't want a Halo Anniversary situation where artists just covered the screen in foliage and lights, but I hope that Remedy seize this opportunity, one where the locations mentioned can become notable to more than just diehard fans of the series.

3. Storytelling Details

Back in the day, Remedy used comic panels, as they believed graphics at the time just weren't sophisticated enough to have the detail to tell Max Payne's story. They were right, and it's a big part of why Max Payne's story holds up better than most of this era. However, we're likely to get the opposite effect now, where comic panels are going to seem weird when then cutting to an engine as powerful as Northlight.

So we're probably getting in-engine scenes, and in that case, there's actually a lot to improve from Max Payne 2 in particular.

The game had several little in-engine cinematics with very basic framing and editing that only really came alive in the dream sequences, and even then, was a lot less scary than the original Max Payne's.

All of that can be fixed, and I really think this is mainly for Max Payne 2's benefit.

That game was attempting to be more than just a revenge story, and while I like Max and Mona, their relationship absolutely could use some work, and frankly, that might be solvable just in having a couple face expressions where there previously weren't.

Obviously, we've got no real clue what this Remake entails, which is why I'm holding reservation until at least seeing it, which won't be for a while. However, while I don't think this remake is as called for as it was for games like Resident Evil 2, there's potential to bring back a type of game which we just don't get anymore, in favor of cover-shooters and multiplayer frag fests.

Who would've thought of the people to keep iterating Max Payne's formula, it'd end up being the people who left Max Payne in the first place.