Back from the brink and ready to leap backwards and spray bullets into the hearts of his enemies, Max Payne 3 is getting the full publicity push from Rockstar right now. Rob Nelson, the game’s art director is part of that push, and he’s been talking to Edge about the setting of the game, Brazil’s Sao Paulo.
He said: “We saw a lot of diverse environments that we could stick [Max Payne] in. It’s a huge city and there’s a major disparity between rich and poor. Learning about that, finding out how massive the place is, has been fascinating.”
Sao Paulo definitely doesn’t strike us a common setting for a game. Using such a unique setting has taken a lot of work, as Nelson explains: “The research is constant, it’s anything that we can get our hands on, pretty much all the way through development. Everyone gets really interested – we’re always swapping things we’ve learned, trying to make sure we’re accurately recreating the place. We take it really seriously.”
But how does this transfer to gameplay? “We can’t really re-use a lot of assets,” said Nelson. “Every stage is going to be different from the last one. Brazil is a fascinating place to set a game – there are plenty of unique aspects to the setting that we’ll reveal over time. We’ve got a lot to work with.”
Max Payne 3 launches… well we’re not exactly sure yet.
