Max Payne 3 in Development, to Be Released in Winter

Just as the fans of Max Payne were recovering after the disastrous homonymous movie, which butchered the ideas of the videogame while trying to make Marky Mark seem tough, Rockstar has brought a ray of sunshine to their street, as it has announced that it is developing Max Payne 3, a third person shooter set to arrive on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the PC sometime in the winter of 2009-2010. We're hoping for sooner rather than later.

The development duty on the title will be handled by Rockstar Vancouver, which worked on Bully and Bully: Scholarship Edition. The developers are saying that the new game in the series will keep the main elements that made it a cult hit with gamers, like the level of violence, the hard-boiled atmosphere, the cynical world view of the main character, while taking the story itself in a new direction, as Max Payne moves on from the quest of revenging his murdered family.

One pretty clear detail is that Max will no longer be a cop for the NYPD and that the action will take place in an entirely new city (Liberty City?). As always, Max Payne will need to trust his killing instinct and his reflexes to get to the bottom of what's happening to him.

Sam Houser, who is the founder of Rockstar Games, stated that “We're starting a new chapter of Max's life with this game. This is Max as we've never seen him before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever. We experience the downward spiral of his life after the events of Max Payne 2 and witness his last chance for salvation.”

Surely, fans would like to see Mona Sax coming back, along with a lot of dark skies and big snow flakes. They would also probably like to see Remedy doing the development work. But let's wait and see where Rockstar can take this character.