When Max Payne got released in the summer of 2001, it was a smashing success for both Remedy Entertainment and Apogee. The story of the gritty, hardboiled cop instantly put the Finnish game studio on the map. Max Payne gained critical acclaim and got praised for its photorealistic graphics, compelling story, and innovative gameplay. However, its success wasn’t entirely by accident.
There is an interesting story behind the creation of Max Payne. With the recently announced remakes of Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, that story might be more relevant than ever. Decisions the studio and publisher made during the development of the originals might still be of influence on the remakes. One of the people that helped make such business-critical decisions was Scott Miller.
Together with George Broussard, Miller is the founder of Apogee and 3D Realms. Back in the nineties, the two managed to popularize a distribution model where each game consisted of multiple episodes, with the first given away for free as shareware. Duke Nukem was a big franchise created by Apogee to use this model. It would later also similarly publish Wolfenstein 3D, among other popular franchises. We sat down with Miller to talk more about how Max Payne came to be.
Hi-Speed
The success of Miller and Broussard would attract the attention of the newly formed Finnish development studio Remedy Entertainment. The studio consisted of various members from the Finnish demoscene group Future Crew and thus were highly experienced with computer graphics and technology. Remedy had developed a concept for its very first video game and reached out to Miller to see if his company would be willing to produce and fund the title.
“The small (at the time) Remedy team presented a demo of a top-down racing game they called Hi-Speed,” Miller explained. “The game looked cool and showed potential, so we agreed to fund and publish it. But I also wanted to rename it to something more exciting. So I came up with Death Rally, borrowing from the cult-film Death Race 2000.”
During this time, Sam Lake got asked by one of his friends at Remedy to help write some of the dialogue and menu strings. He remained working there ever since and ultimately became the face of the company, mainly due to his famous portrayal as Max Payne himself.
Miller continues, “Apogee and Remedy had a terrific working relationship, and we wanted to continue it, so they presented us with three games.”
As soon as Death Rally shipped, Remedy started working on three new concepts: another racing game, a space RTS, and a detective game featuring a gritty cop in New York City.
“Here’s the crazy part!” Miller said. “They wanted to make all three games simultaneously! I had to sit down with them and explain as best as possible that making three largely scoped games would destroy their company. Thankfully, they agreed.”
“But honestly, I preferred doing the gritty cop game based in New York City. So that’s the game I wanted to focus on.”
Dark Justice
“So next, I told them that Apogee had zero interest in a racing game. That one was out of the question. A space combat game could do well… But honestly, I preferred doing the gritty cop game based in New York City. So that’s the game I wanted to focus on.” Miller added.
The first detective game concept Remedy pitched to Miller incorporated a top-down perspective, much like Death Rally, in which you maneuvered the cop character through rooms and hallways. Miller didn’t like it, but the story Remedy was pitching resonated with him. The recent success of Tomb Raider influenced Miller to advise Remedy to go fully 3D and change to a third-person perspective. Remedy continued work, rebuilding the game from scratch using 3D graphics. One of the first versions that incorporated 3D graphics was called Dark Justice. Miller quickly advised against that name, explaining the title would benefit from a name that would do well in marketing. Thus, Miller suggested a new name: Max Payne.
“Max Payne was a game in which I told the Remedy team from the start in 1997: If we do this right, we will not only create a super successful game, but with a strong character and story I predicted we’d have Hollywood knocking at our door to make a feature film.”
During the development of Max Payne, the game went through various revisions. The one most recognized by fans is when the assets and artwork changed from hand-drawn textures to photorealistic textures. The E3 1998 trailer still shows much of that older version of the game.
“I showed Remedy what we were doing with Duke Nukem Forever. Which was photo-sourced textures and models, and told them this was the future. I convinced Remedy to go for a photorealistic look for Max Payne too. They then had the great idea of spending a few days in New York City, taking thousands of digital pictures of building textures, subway textures, doors, floors, streets, back alleys, street signs, grates, lots of graffiti, and so much more. They took images of their staff, family members, and even me!”
Decisions, decisions.
To save costs, Remedy chose not to hire professional actors but use family members, staff, and friends to portray characters in the game. Sam Lake’s mother, for example, plays the villain Nicole Horne. They also famously opted to work with a graphic novel instead of fully rendered in-game cinematics. The latter option proved to be way too expensive. They’d soon realize the graphic novel style of storytelling also added to the uniqueness of the game.
“Finding unique hooks or ideas has always been a key success of Apogee games. For example, this is why we made Duke speak in Duke Nukem 3D, to have him stand apart from the non-speaking characters in FPS games. You’ve simply got to find a way to be unique. Something that was true then, and totally remains true to this day.” Miller says.
Another unique hook the game featured was slow-motion. Remedy already had slow-motion stylized killcams in the game for killing thugs. “But I gave them the idea that slow-motion should be a gameplay feature that the player should control,” Miller says. “Remedy then asked how this would be advantageous to the player, and I suggested that the key to getting bullet time working was to allow the player to still aim in real-time speed.” Bullet time would eventually become one of the most recognizable elements of Max Payne and stimulated the usage of slow-motion in many more games after.
“Once we put bullet time into the game, it was a real struggle for us to figure out how to pull this off in multiplayer.”
Another popular trope back in the nineties was multiplayer. Games like Unreal Tournament quickly gained popularity. Max Payne was supposed to have multiplayer too. Miller explains why the mode was eventually cut: “We dropped the idea for two reasons. First, once we put bullet time into the game, it was a real struggle for us to figure out how to pull this off in multiplayer. Second, Max Payne became far more costly than we originally projected, and once we had bullet time in the game, we felt like the game could be super successful even without multiplayer. So we cut that feature in order to cut development by at least 6-10 months.”
New bosses.
When Max Payne was eventually released and became a staggering success, Scott Miller and Remedy made another tough decision: To sell the franchise. “It was my idea to sell the franchise, and I pitched it to Microsoft and Take-Two. Note that Apogee and Remedy co-owned the Max Payne franchise 50/50. Take-Two ended up as the buyer, as we all know. Why did I want to sell it? Simple: Max Payne had totally outperformed all expectations and was a massive hit. I feared bullet time might get old over one or two further games, so why not sell the IP at its peak?”
As the new owner of the franchise, Take-Two desired a sequel and hired Remedy to develop it. The game would now be published by Rockstar Games and that meant new bosses. Miller’s role was now different, but he still helped during production.
“As for the development of Max Payne 2, I was still deeply involved with that game. I gave thousands of design, play-testing, and story notes during development. Five to six months before the game was set to go gold, I started raising concerns that certain parts of the story were too confusing, and that a few other areas of the game also needed more work. Take-Two didn’t agree. After the sale of the IP, it was no longer Apogee’s call to make.”
When Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was released, the title was critically acclaimed. Reviewers praised the game’s action and story but thought the overall experience lasted a bit short. Despite the positive reviews, the title sold poorly. Miller has an idea of what might have been the cause: “Max Payne 2 showed bullet time fatigue. The first Max Payne came out of the blue and blew everyone away. I suspect that Max Payne 2 did not have that surprise/wow factor working for it.”
It took over a decade for Max Payne 3 to release. Another decade later and the first two Max Payne games are about to be remade from scratch. Remedy is returning to its roots, as it struck a deal with Rockstar Games to take on development duties once again. How those titles will turn out remains to be seen. While not actively involved, it’s clear even those two games will have Miller’s fingerprints all over them.
