Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser blames himself for Max Payne 3 - "A lot of the failure was on me"

Max Payne 3 is a bit of a strange project. Unlike its two predecessors, this game was not developed by the original developer Remedy Entertainment, but rather by Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption studios. Read more

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The consensus at the time was that people hated it.

Despite that pedigree, it doesn't come across as anything like a failure — or at least not what fans wanted from the third game in the iconic third-person shooter series. And Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says it was his fault.

In an extensive interview with IGN, Houser, who was also the lead writer on Max Payne 3, recalled his experience working on the game and how it differs from other Rockstar projects.

"It was a linear game, so it was a little different from writing an open-world game, a little more structured," Houser said. "I really enjoyed it as an experience. I loved what we did design-wise, the way it played without loading, the way it felt like a 12-hour movie, some of the visual work we did with the words on the screen. I felt like we were creating a really cool digital noir experience, and the consensus at the time was that people hated it."

Hauser is a bit harsh here. Max Payne 3 was critically acclaimed upon its release. The same stylistic, tonal, and visual choices that many disliked are what set it apart from the previous two games. In fact, Max Payne 3's mechanics remain among the best in the series to this day, with fluid third-person movements and snappy gameplay that make the game enjoyable 14 years later.

Houser added, "I know [Max Payne creator] Sam Lake very well, and he's a really nice guy and really talented. I thought we did a good job of doing another Max Payne game." "Some people liked it, a lot of people didn't. So we made a mistake, or I made a mistake. I failed. My beat wasn't successful."

Max Payne 3 was seen as a commercial disappointment by publisher Take-Two, which said its lower-than-expected sales were largely responsible for the $110 million (around £82.9 million) loss in that fiscal quarter. In the interview, Houser acknowledged the lower sales and said, "It wasn't as successful as it should have been."

"So I would say a lot of that failure was on me as one of the people making the decisions and also as the writer when people really missed [Sam Lake's] writing," Houser added.

Years after the release of Max Payne 3, Remedy and Rockstar teamed up on a major project: the remake of Max Payne 1 and 2, which Remedy said went into full production two years ago. It is clear that the remake is the next project of Remedy.