Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says he ‘failed’ with Max Payne 3, and I’m sorry Danno but that’s just plain wrong

Dan Houser is a co-founder of Rockstar Games and so I would never presume to tell him he’s wrong about any of the games Rockstar has made—except in this one particular instance, where I feel obligated to step up and say, ‘Dan, I’m sorry bud, but you’re wrong.’

The game in question is Max Payne 3, on which Houser played a central role, and one he seems rather down on: In an interview with IGN, he said the game was a “failure” because, simply put, he’s not Sam Lake, the Remedy creative director who wrote the first two Max Payne games.

As a very linear game, Max Payne 3 “was a little different” from the open world GTA games he was accustomed to, Houser said, but he also really enjoyed the experience. “I loved what we did design-wise, the way the game didn’t have loads, the way it felt like a 12-hour movie, some of the visual stuff we did with words on screen.

Alas, he continued, “I felt we were creating a really cool digital noir experience, and the consensus at the time was that people hated it.

“So I got that completely wrong,” Houser said. “I know Sam Lake well, and he’s a very good guy and really talented. I thought we’d done a good job of doing another Max Payne game. Some people liked it; lots didn’t. So we got it wrong, or I got it wrong. I failed. My bit was not a success.

“The game is beautifully made, and it wasn’t as successful as it should have been. So I would say a large amount of that failure was on me as one of the people making the decisions and also as the writer, when people really missed his writing.”

Max Payne 3 is a really interesting case study because it’s very much a Max Payne game—grim and gritty, filled with bullet time, body drops, and snappy commentary about how much life sucks—but it’s also a full-on Rockstar game, and thus a very different vibe from the previous two entries in the series. Fans who were expecting more of the same—or insisting on it, really—were bound to be disappointed.

But Max Payne 3 itself is nothing short of a brilliant, powerhouse cinematic shooter. It really does feel like “a 12-hour movie,” powered by lush cut scenes, a brilliant soundtrack by industrial rock group Health, and great performances across the board, in particular from James McCaffrey in the title role.

With all due respect to Remedy, this is where McCaffrey really hit his stride, digging deep to deliver some truly great lines:

• I wouldn’t know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister.
• Look at me, I’m standing in a nightclub, listening to music I can’t stand, I’m five thousand miles from home, I’m armed, and I’m drinking. You don’t want to listen to advice from me, amigo.
• I had a hole in my second favourite drinking arm, and the only way we were likely to get Fabiana back now was in instalments.

• I’d killed more cops than cholesterol and still no sign of Becker. It wasn’t the first time it dawned on me I should probably have gone over the plan in more detail, but it was too late for that now.
• I was a dumb American in a place where dumb Americans are less popular than the clap.
• I’d put a big shit-eating grin on my face and let these assholes take turns trying to kill me. That’s my style and it’s too late in the day to hope for change.

• We’d half destroyed Sao Paulo’s most hallowed place of worship. Looking back it was strange how the cops never showed up. But things had a habit of only making sense to me looking back, long after I’d run out of time to fix them.
• I’d been sitting at the bar for three hours, or about five years, depending on how you looked at things. I tried not to look at things.

It is fair to say that Max Payne 3 wasn’t a massive commercial success: In 2012, publisher Take-Two Interactive said sales of the game came in “lower than expected,” resulting in a significantly increased net loss for the quarter. But that’s hardly the only measure of success, and I think it’s notable that Take-Two said the same, at the same time, about Spec Ops: The Line, a game widely heralded, then and now, for its daring, subversive narrative.

Max Payne 3 was a slower burn, but I think the passage of time has given us a far better perspective on what Rockstar actually delivered: As former PC Gamer writer Andy Kelly wrote a full decade ago, “Over the years I’ve developed a greater appreciation for the risks Rockstar took in breaking Remedy’s established, and beloved, mould.”

“It’s a radical departure, but it works,” the other Andy wrote in his very correct take on Max Payne 3. “It’s always interesting to see a familiar character thrust into an unfamiliar situation, and Max is hilariously out of place in Brazil. As if being a white American in a favela didn’t draw enough unwanted attention, he makes his life even more difficult by wearing the loudest Hawaiian shirt imaginable. He was comfortable in New York, but here he’s an outsider, and the game plays up to it brilliantly.”

And so, Dan, with all due respect, I have to say, ‘I’m sorry bud, but you’re wrong.’ Max Payne 3 may have been divisive in its time, and it may not have been the big hit you were hoping for, but I sure wouldn’t call it a failure. I’d say Rockstar, and you, absolutely nailed it.