Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games, Slasks Psykbunker
Topics: PC, Rockstar Games, Mods
Owning the goliath Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption IPs, it might be easy to forget that Rockstar Games has plenty more fantastic franchises under its umbrella such as the topic of today’s discussion, Max Payne.
The original game in the Max Payne series was released in 2001 for PC, PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox. There was also a port for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, but the less said about that version, the better. Max Payne and its 2003 sequel were developed by Alan Wake 2 developer Remedy Entertainment before Rockstar Games took over developmental duties with 2012's Max Payne 3. The role of Max Payne is truly an iconic character in the world of video games brought to life by actor James McCaffrey who recently died, aged 65.
Check out the original Max Payne trailer below!
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In April 2022, Rockstar Games announced that it was working alongside Remedy Entertainment to remake the first two Max Payne games. News on the remakes went radio silent following the announcement. Yet, in February 2023, Rockstar Games stated that the Max Payne remakes were still on track for the new-gen release and it went into full production later that year.
Until those remakes arrive, we can still play both Max Payne and Max Payne 2 on modern Xbox and PlayStation consoles. However, on PC, gamers can experience enhanced classic games thanks to talented modders and the original Max Payne game is no exception.
As reported by DSOGaming, a modder named ‘Slasks Psykbunker’ is working on an enhancement of the original game in the NYC detective series with ‘Max Payne Remixed’. Better still, a demo of the mod has also been released and it is free for you to download now via moddb.com.
‘Max Payne Remixed’ takes full advantage of PBR (Physically Based Rendering) and ray tracing effects, and the results are incredible. The models and assets of the original Max Payne have also been remastered. What’s more, DSOGaming mentions that this mod supports Nvidia’s DLSS, meaning that if you own an RTX GPU, this classic game will perform better even with the demands of the mod enabled.
At the time of writing, the release date for the Max Payne and Max Payne 2 remakes hasn't been announced, but we do know that they will be released on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.