14 DAY TRIAL // Rockstar Games’ development process for the upcoming Max Payne 3 shooter has been a long and painstaking one, as the studio has just highlighted the efforts it has made while recreating the real life Sao Paulo in the virtual game.
Max Payne 3 continues the story of the grizzled New York detective, this time as he reaches Sao Paulo, Brazil, in order to escape the nightmares that still plague him. As you can imagine, he doesn’t find the peace he wants, because the job he gets as private security for a rich family quickly turns dangerous, due to a criminal group that kidnaps one of the family’s children.
In order to make Max Payne’s latest adventures as lifelike as possible, Rockstar’s research development went on several trips to Sao Paulo in order to document environments, locations, as well as the criminal groups and the law enforcement agencies active in the country.
“In addition to all of the intense technical development and meticulous game design being poured into Max Payne 3 to create an advanced and cutting-edge action-shooter gameplay experience - as always, painstaking effort has also been made by our development teams and internal Rockstar Research department to ensure that the vibe and presentation of São Paulo - touchstones like Paulistano culture, police, weaponry and other elements that will not only contribute to the game’s single-player narrative, but also the single and multiplayer environments and characters - are as authentic as possible.”
Throughout Max Payne 3’s story, criminals will go up against the American detective as well as the UFE (Unidade de Forcas Especiais), a fictional special forces police unit based on real life ones like the GATE (Grupo de Acões Táticas Especiais). You can admire both of them in the image above.
This won’t be an easy fight, however, as the criminals are armed to the teeth thanks to a thriving gun smuggling business that sees weapons are carried into Brazil from its neighboring countries.
All the locations in the game are based on existent places in the South American city, from fancy downtown areas to poor favelas.
“Gathering assets to help accurately inform and create faithful game level environments set in São Paulo, Rockstar game developers and designers took several trips to the area to extensively document everything from the glamour and exclusivity of posh spots like Avenida Morumbi, Avenida Paulista and the Jardins district, to harsh high-crime locales like Favela Japiaçu (Favela do Nove) and the infamous Edificio São Vito (aka Treme Treme or the Vertical Favela).”
All this research will result in one of the most accurate virtual depictions of Brazil in Max Payne 3, according to Rockstar, so fans can look forward to the game’s release in March for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.