Many gamers ecently rejoiced with the news that both Max Payne 1 and 2 are receiving remakes made by Remedy Entertainment. With the cult-classic neo-noir shooters coming up on nearly two decades since their respective initial releases, the games are more than worthy choices for the increasingly popular remake treatment.
It is worth noting that Remedy Entertainment is working alongside Rockstar in the remake of these two titles, with Rockstar funding the process while Remedy develops the remakes. This is poignant considering Rockstar’s relatively recent and highly controversial remaster of Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas within Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. With Rockstar being involved in the remake of another highly coveted older franchise, it is imperative that the mistakes made with the GTA remasters are not repeated for the remakes of Max Payne.
The Max Payne Remakes
The news of the Max Payne remakes came as a shock to most in the gaming world, albeit a welcome one. With the aforementioned budgeting of the remakes being majorly financed by the gargantuan Rockstar, fans can expect an impressive level of detail to be present within the games. Not only this, but fans of the Max Payne franchise will know that it was Remedy Entertainment who held the lion’s share of development for both Max Payne 1 and 2, so the developer’s return for the remakes of said games is the clear right choice in preserving the ethos and feel of the original titles.
A development studio based in Finland, Remedy is more contemporarily known for its work on titles such as the Alan Wake franchise, Control, and Quantum Break. While many are deeply excited at the prospect of playing the remakes for Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2, any estimations as to when they will be released are at this point just conjecture, with no official release date information currently known.
What is known, however, is that the remakes will be developed for the current generation of consoles as well as PC. This bypassing of the PS4 and Xbox One is a clear statement of intent not only for the likely gulf in time that fans will have to wait until the eventual release of the remakes, but also speaks to the high fidelity and quality that the games are aiming to possess. With it also being known that the remakes will use the lauded Northlight engine, which was used for Control, the remakes promise to be visually stunning.
The Tumultuous Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Remasters
When Rockstar announced remasters of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas within the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy, there was a predictable level of hype and support surrounding the project. However, upon release, players had a plethora of warranted criticisms for the games, which are now largely painted as unpolished and rushed mimics of what were classic genre-defining titles.
With many players experiencing glitches, noting removed content from the original games, and reporting comedy-ruining omissions and oversights in signage around the game’s cities, the overall legacy that the GTA Trilogy remasters possess is a mixed one, to say the least. Considering how this problematic launch is still in recent memory for many gamers, with the GTA Trilogy launching only in November 2021, it is a very bold move for Rockstar to announce such an overt involvement in the Max Payne remakes so soon after its last foray into adapting beloved titles underperformed.
How the Max Payne Remakes Can Avoid the Problems of the GTA Trilogy
Both Max Payne 1 and 2 are, at their core, extremely alike to the Grand Theft Auto titles that featured within the recent trilogy remaster. With both sets of games being beloved third-person shooters from the early 2000s, the games, as well as their remakes/remasters, are directly comparable to a fairly significant degree. In this way, both Rockstar and Remedy Entertainment have an empirical and contemporary example of what not to do when adapting such revered source material.
One of the many criticisms that fans had with the GTA Trilogy laid within the graphics that the games possessed. Adopting a more cartoony art style, the remastered GTA games fell into the trap of simply upscaling many of the textures and assets from the original games, often using algorithms and AI to do so. This led to many mistranslations and mistakes within the upscaled textures, with many noting higher levels of details within some of the original games models as opposed to the remastered versions. With the aforementioned utilization of the impressive Northlight game engine for the Max Payne remakes, fans can expect a seriously high level of graphical quality and fidelity, with textures and models crafted anew, specifically for the hardware of current-gen consoles.
The overall advantage that the new Max Payne remakes inherently have over the GTA Trilogy lies in the fact that they are remakes as opposed to the GTA Trilogy being remasters. While it can be argued that it is easier to remaster a game due to the recycling of already-existing textures and assets, this absolutely does not equate to a more enjoyable gameplay experience, as the GTA Trilogy showed. With the Max Payne remakes, only two games are being adapted as opposed to the GTA Trilogy’s three, with the large expected gulf in time between announcement and release affording Remedy the time to passionately remake the games from the ground up, with the same vigor and determination as when it originally launched the two titles.
The Max Payne remakes are currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
