Max Payne 3 Could Arrive This Year

Max Payne 3 has been a pretty shy customer when it comes to press releases. Technically, it should be a big game, especially considering how well the previous two installments were received by gamers. Even if companies previously used a no-talking-to-the-press policy in the past to tease and torment gamers, they usually ramped things up greatly as the launch date approached. So the new teaser trailer that has recently surfaced on YouTube featuring the older, combat-fatigued Payne has left people in awe. Officially, the game has a release date set in the first half of 2010. But the trailer says “coming winter 2009” so now everyone is just confused.

The trailer looks very good, definitely good enough to be the real deal, and is supposedly pulled off the official 3D Realms forums. It's not some hack-job editing of slides and pictures with some Max Payne 3 logos thrown into it. It's a 30-second cinematic filled with slow motion bullets flying around. A close shot is taken on one of them as they fly by and the reflection of someone wearing what looks like a turban is shown. So graphics-wise it looks solid. As for content, it's definitely what can be expected of a teaser trailer. It gives something but still gives nothing. Except for the end, when the new release date is given.

Game developers never, ever, finish a game earlier, not by a few whole months anyway. Something is strange and doesn't fit, but who knows, Max Payne's trick up his sleeve has always been time manipulation. Maybe the game comes from the future, at least that would explain the new release date and would even make more sense of the whole “finished early” thing.

Rockstar hasn't given any official comment on the trailer but that doesn't mean a thing. Even if it's a fake, an accidental release like the time code at the bottom-left corner would suggest, or if it's an official release, the company would still decline to comment. Still, there are little chances that they would let a rumor fly around that would only disappoint and aggravate fans, and a fake release date would do just that.