The announcement of a Max Payne remake has crashed developer Remedy's website. The popular third-person shooter put Remedy on the map in 2001, and a remake or remaster of Max Payne has been requested often by fans due to the game's visuals looking dated by today's standards, even though the narrative and gameplay elements of the franchise remain beloved by those who played them about twenty years ago.
When Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne launched in 2001 and 2003 the games received considerable acclaim for their use of John Woo-inspired bullet-time gameplay and their surreal storylines. Although GTA developer Rockstar would pick up development duties for the third game in the series, 2012's Max Payne 3, Remedy's following games - which include further shooter titles such as Alan Wake and Control - continued to experiment with surrealist storytelling, taking inspiration from eerie David Lynch projects such as Twin Peaks, and carving out a very signature style within the games market.
Due to Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne's status as fan favorites, fans have been requesting a remake or remaster of the titles, with a common criticism for those returning to the early 2000s title is that the story and gameplay hold up, but the visuals are extremely dated compared to the near photorealistic standards of today's gaming. Rumors of a remake have circulated for a while, especially in the wake of the Alan Wake remaster by Remedy in 2021. Therefore, upon the announcement that Remedy would be remaking Max Payne and Max Payne 2 on the Northlight Engine - the same engine which was used to develop Control, Quantum Break, and the upcoming Alan Wake 2 - fans seem to have flooded the developer's website in search of more info, causing it to temporarily go offline.
The website seems to be stable at the time of this writing, revealing that Remedy will work alongside Rockstar under a new publishing agreement that will see Remedy handling development while Rockstar will finance the project. The announcement further claimed that the budget will be in line with a typical modern Remedy AAA-game production and that the remakes will be coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, making them new-gen exclusives.
The crashing of the Remedy website is a clear indication of the fan demand for a Max Payne remake. The idea of seeing the engine that was used for Control bringing the rich film-noir story and bullet-time gameplay the titles are famous for to a modern generation is an exciting prospect, and time will tell how well the Max Payne remakes live up to their predecessors.
Sources: Remedy