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Max Payne Release Date Confirmed

Rockstar have announced today  that Max Payne 3 is expected to launch on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 15, 2012 in North America and May 18, 2012 internationally; and for the PC on May 29, 2012 in North America and June 1, 2012 internationally. Originally the title was expected to be launching in March 12 2012 in the UK and Europe.

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Rockstar: Max Payne 3 online's "gritty realism" sets it apart from Gears 3

"We've been doing the multiplayer for a long time," lead designer Charlie Bewsher told OXM when we asked him whether rival shooters had been inspirational. "And we certainly do look at a lot of games as they come out - we're all gamers - but Max Payne is what this game has always been about, and I think that largely because it's been third-person there's always been a very heavy movement component in it.

Falling over with style. "You're not just shooting in this game, you're interacting with the environment and there are a number of moves: you've got shoot dodges and rolls, and you can interact with the environment in interesting ways. With Max Payne there's a gritty realism and we've always pulled that through - even into the load-out. This weight concept was a very obvious thing for us - the more stuff you'll have the heavier you'll be and that'll give you certain disadvantages and we want to keep it realistic essentially."

Asked whether he was worried about competition from Gears of War 3 - the highest-placing third-person shooter on last year's Xbox Live activity charts - Bewsher reiterated the importance of getting the basics right. "I think you've got to nail the core gameplay: the moving, shooting and the way you interact with the map all have to be solid."

"The gameplay in Max Payne 3 feels different to any other game: the way you can shoot-dodge and use that to vault over cover, jump through windows, dodge out of the way into cover... There's a lot of different ways you can choose to play the game, and that's before you've even started to play with the load-outs and Bursts. I think it's a very refreshing take on multiplayer."

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Max Payne 3: Revealing Payne Killer

Daniel does not play well with others.

This isn't a damning school reported dredged up from my youth. It's a frank self-assessment of my present gaming habits. In an age when multiplayer is king, I prefer to play alone.

I've done my best to overcome this complaint. I really have. When playing Halo I try to get involved, charging into battle, plasma grenade in hand. Yet more often than not, I find myself sat alone in a Warthog on the edges on the map, watching everyone else have a much better time. I can't even convincingly pass myself off as a lone wolf.

Yes, it's lonely in a crowd, but for some it's even lonelier in a multiplayer lobby. And nowhere is this more prominent than in the shooter genre. Don't get me wrong, the advent of online services like Xbox LIVE and PSN have revolutionised multiplayer, and there's no turning back. Even the most sprawling of sofas can only accommodate so many players. So in a bid to keep virtual battlefields populated with fresh fodder 24-hours a day, cryptic gamertags and faceless opponents have become staples of the online experience. This has created, however, a level of anonymity that many find deeply alienating.

Max Payne 3's multiplayer – a first for the franchise – attempts to counter this modern malaise. "We're trying to reduce the anonymity you get in multiplayer games," says Charlie Bewsher, the lead designer on the game's multiplayer. "We want to make relationships. We want to make these players stand out for you."

Payne Killer, the game's take of King of the Hill, is a good example of how it tries to forge relationships. Designed as the natural successor to Max Payne 2's Dead Man Walking mode, it centres on Max and his partner Passos as they fight to stay alive for as long as possible. Two players will randomly start the match as Max and Passos, while everyone else attempts to take them out. All the other players are, essentially, on one big team, hunting down the pair. To make things fair, Max and Passos are equipped with special abilities and powerful load-outs. Points are gained by injuring or killing Max and Passos, or by killing any of the attacking team. The player with the most points wins. Simple.

Now here's the twist: if you kill either of the under-fire duo, you and your victim will become the new Max and Passos. Forcing you to work with your killer potentially creates an uneasy, awkward alliance, but if you are to survive for long you need to reconcile, quickly.

But all alliances are ultimately ephemeral, with allies being turned upon one another in an instant. "What we really enjoyed about multiplayer games is the relationship you have with other players when you're playing," says Bewsher. Like Gang Wars, the game's flagship multiplayer mode, it's all about forging intimate rivalries and breaking them, creating the familiar drama that would emerge naturally sat next to friends, huddled around a console.

It's a strategy that runs throughout the game's multiplayer. Even smaller features, like the Vendetta system, are designed to foster good-natured rivalry. If Payne Killer is about forging relationships before smashing them to pieces, Gang Wars' Vendettas are all about fuelling competition. If a player is killed twice in a row by an opponent, they can choose to start a vendetta with that player. If they can successfully take them out, they will be handsomely rewarded with a XP bonus. But if they are killed by their target, the opponent will take the bonus for themselves. Those locked into a vendetta will be able to see each other on the mini-map, instigating a cat-and-mouse like scenario.

Whether Max Payne's multiplayer will succeed in its bid to create a more social, more personable online shooter depends, to a large degree, on the type of community it attracts once the game is released and servers go live. Yet it's interesting that its director has tried to counter the anonymity through deliberate design choices, shaping the very form of the multiplayer arena to draw out the very best (and sometimes worst) in players. So far, it's promising to be one of the most engaging online shooters around. I'm already feeling a little less lonely.

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