By Alec Meer on March 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am.
For months now, the internet has been buzzing with speculation about what secrets forthcoming man-shooting game Max Payne 3 might contain. So very many questions are left to be answered by this third part of the epic, twisting saga of shooting a lot of men in the face in slow motion, and we’ve had to wait long, agonising years to discover how it all ends. With Max Payne 3′s release just months away, RPS has rounded up all the rumours, speculation and script leaks to bring you the definitive guide to Max’s fate. Spoilers await.
Max will encounter a man who runs a drugs business.
‘Max’ is actually short for ‘Maxthew.’
At one point, Max will shoot up to 12 men before proceeding to the next area.
Max is actually two men with the same dark past.
Max will wear a toupee in level 9, nominally to go undercover but really because he’s become self-conscious about his newly bald head. The toupee will fall off when he dives underneath a table a little too quickly, but fortunately he shoots everyone who sees it in the face so his shame remains secret.
Max will be wounded, but recover. Word on the grapevine is that this will happen up to 1400 times across the course of the game.
Max will dive into a room in slow motion. The room may contain several doors, only one of which can be opened.
Max will find a bigger gun than his existing gun. He will then proceed to fire this gun into another man’s face. Occasionally, he will miss and fire it into his opponent’s torso instead.
The final level takes place in Atlantis.
In the concluding cinematic, Max will have a moment of terrible realisation and lay down his guns. The final line, before a fade to black to the sound of weeping, is rumoured to be “So much death. I killed so very many men. And I didn’t attempt to speak to even a single one of them first. I don’t know why I did that. What’s wrong with me? They might have just waved me through, or apologised for the misunderstanding and we could have gone for a beer and compared scars. I could have had friends. So many. Instead, I’m alone. So horribly alone. If I hadn’t already shaved my head, I’d shave my head right now and move to a monastery.”
The shooting will be quite good.
20/03/2012 at 11:25 CaspianRoach says:
Just two more months…
20/03/2012 at 11:26 max pain says:
Maxthew Payne? Noooo, the franchise is ruined!
20/03/2012 at 11:40 Faldrath says:
Maxbrush Threepayne!
20/03/2012 at 11:44 maktacular says:
I heard it was originally MaX Power but he changed it to Payne as he thought “Power” was silly
20/03/2012 at 11:36 julianbenson says:
Let’s petition a new ending where Max shoots the Normandy in the face.
20/03/2012 at 12:00 Njordsk says:
Nah, Max is the reapers’ mastermind and is made of dark matter
20/03/2012 at 16:18 Eddy9000 says:
That would be the second most ridiculous ending to a much loved game trilogy ever!
21/03/2012 at 08:58 Tuco says:
Still, a better ending than Mass Effect 3.
20/03/2012 at 12:03 Bluerps says:
“Max is actually two men with the same dark past.”
Wait… so Max Payne is actually Two Cops?
20/03/2012 at 13:31 Hoaxfish says:
Two Cops One Glock (exception when they’re dual wielding)
20/03/2012 at 13:35 Kyrius says:
Then we’ll have coop! badummm tchiiii
20/03/2012 at 17:03 PleasingFungus says:
He entered the academy twice by accident. Now he’s a gritty, noir-themed antihero!
20/03/2012 at 18:29 Bluerps says:
You mean two gritty, noir-themed antiheroes!
Wait (again) … there is an academy for gritty, noir-themed antiheroes?
20/03/2012 at 12:07 yandexx says:
There may or may not be a baseball bat.
20/03/2012 at 12:16 brulleks says:
Max, at some point, will have to shoot someone who he previously forged an uneasy alliance with, and/or will have to protect someone he once considered to be an enemy.
20/03/2012 at 12:23 space_ghost says:
And there will be a stereotypical Russian, and the pills will ease the pain.
20/03/2012 at 12:29 S Jay says:
“RPS will write something serious about it”
20/03/2012 at 12:29 Lambchops says:
Max will at some point make a “constipated face” in homage to the stomach problems he endured back in New York.
20/03/2012 at 12:30 PC-GAMER-4LIFE says:
How about some proper games journalism RPS like how well will this run on PC’s. GTA4 was fine if you had Core i7 + 1.5Gb VRam………
What about Max Payne 3? That will determine how well is sells on PC more than anything (I doubt it will do more than a few hundread thousand anyway on PC as thats about the ceiling nowadays unless your game is a technical masterpiece or contains real ilve actual gameplay not cut n paste repeat doing the same old same old ever few minutes like most modern games!!
20/03/2012 at 12:34 Morlock says:
True. I do want to know how many Tera-graphics the engine has. GTA 4 had two-point-nine which was a total disgrace.
20/03/2012 at 12:45 theSeekerr says:
GTA IV was released in 2008. It is now 2012.
If you don’t yet have a computer at least twice as powerful as was necessary to run GTA IV, you’re doing it wrong.
20/03/2012 at 13:24 kharnevil says:
theSeekerr obviously hasn’t played GTA4 on PC.
20/03/2012 at 12:54 tobias says:
Ah, PC-GAMER-4LIFE, first I thought your post was some witty sarcasm, and then… well. I realised it wasn’t.
Never mind, eh?
20/03/2012 at 13:22 Vesuvius says:
It’s too early in the morning for me to be witty and scathing. Instead I just wanted to let you know, as a friend, that benchmarking isn’t the same as journalism, and that humor is a valid and welcome element of discourse on a title- we’re using it here to poke fun at the predictability of the genre, in case you hadn’t noticed.
That said, I’m truly sorry that you have to suffer through RPS not being the site you wish it were. My suggestion is that you go find a site that does what you like and post THERE. That way you won’t have to be put through this painful disappointment every day.
20/03/2012 at 14:06 Grayvern says:
It will have all the graphics, every single one, and run on intel inside integrated graphics at 100000000 fps, while using cryoarithmetic algorithms to keep your pc frosty.
20/03/2012 at 16:47 Eddy9000 says:
Proper games journalism?
http://www.systemrequirements.in/pc-game-system-requirements-max-payne-3.html
20/03/2012 at 22:02 maktacular says:
Such command of language! Such mastery of concepts! Such journalistic beauty as to bring me close to tears!
20/03/2012 at 12:41 Morlock says:
Will Brazilians speak Spanish and have Spanish names like “Alejandro Rojas”? Will the street signs in São Paulo be in English?
20/03/2012 at 13:36 Kyrius says:
auhhauhuaauh sooooooooo much this! As a brazilian guy, I’m actually worried about this :)
20/03/2012 at 12:43 skyturnedred says:
I sure hope that Atlantis bit is true!
20/03/2012 at 13:27 cqdemal says:
Me too. In fact, add Max Payne to any fantasy/sci-fi setting and you have my money.
20/03/2012 at 13:30 Vesuvius says:
Only if you still get the gritty voice-overs.
20/03/2012 at 13:46 drdss says:
You could set it in a noirish future, with or without the voiceover, and have him chasing renegade robots and “retiring” them. And he might or might not be a robot himself.
You’d need someone good to direct the inevitable film version, perhaps Ridley Scott?
20/03/2012 at 15:43 Milos says:
Nah, it would never catch on. You would, like, have to invent a whole new genre for that to work.
20/03/2012 at 13:48 Mr Chug says:
If only you could talk to the… men?
20/03/2012 at 15:52 Snuffy the Evil says:
If only you could talk to the mobsters. Now that would be something.
20/03/2012 at 22:08 Syra says:
I love you.
20/03/2012 at 15:31 Lucky Main Street says:
The room may contain several doors, only one of which can be opened.
Haha!
20/03/2012 at 16:49 Eddy9000 says:
Max will shoot a bazillion Brazilians.
20/03/2012 at 22:09 Syra says:
My keyboard will get sticky from too much gunporn.