The flames licked Max Payne’s ashes, terrified face. The modern office of his (now deceased) employer has not only been invaded by paramilitary forces, but is now burning thanks to the mass of C4s that had just been detonated.
If being thrown from a window by an explosion is usually the low point of someone’s day, it’s hardly an inconvenience for Max. As he stumbles into the next shootout, it’s just another cosmic joke of the joke he finds himself in. But while Max Payne’s bad, horrible, bad, very bad day might have been hell for him, to me, it’s an uplifting test of what developer Rockstar Games is capable of remind.
Returning to Max Payne 3—incredibly turning 10 this year—is eye-opening. I’m totally looking forward to getting in and craving the freedom Rockstar is known for offering. After a few fun dives with uzis rattling in Max’s hands, my desire for this brand of melancholic hyper-violence would be quenched.
But, to mimic the hero’s punishing relationship with Mr. J Daniels, I couldn’t resist more of this industrial ballet bullet screeching. Instead of craving an open world and all the options that come with it, I experienced a small revelation – remember what Rockstar’s gifted eye brings to non-sandbox games.
Good memories
Which begs the question: what’s going on These Rock star game? From the PS2 days, Rockstar would launch GTA and then launch a game that deliberately tried something different, introducing concepts or ideas that could later be improved upon or repurposed in its hits. While this approach may have been driven by necessity rather than early creativity, a brief description of its output illustrates why a publisher’s new game always feels like an event.
Bully helps Rockstar find a more approachable, sweeter tone in its iconic open world
After the neon playground of Sin City, Manhunt’s video nasty impatience, Rockstar North ventures into horror and secrecy. After San Andreas comes the likes of Warriors, which perfectly captures the gangster spirit of the cult movie.
Then there’s the much-loved Bully, which helped Rockstar find a more approachable, sweeter tone in its signature open world. There’s also Rockstar Ping Pong, which provides a platform for developers to experiment at the beginning of the Xbox 360’s life cycle.
The final game did lay the groundwork for GTA 4’s later proud RAGE engine. Heck, in 2009, Rockstar also released Beaterator for PSP, a music mixing game with 2000 pop chart tyrant Timbaland. Maybe a niche title, but at least it shows that the studio is willing to try new things.
But the company’s catalog has shrunk since GTA 5 launched. In the decade since Los Santos debuted, only Red Dead Redemption 2 has stood out as the “new” rockstar game, with most of its creations being remakes and remakes.
While there’s no doubting Red Dead 2’s overt and impressive qualities, aside from its more somber tone, it’s not a shift in the “stealth horror that drove the British tabloids out of their minds” mode.
highest pay
Of course, the billion-dollar elephant that keeps staring at me as I go through Rockstar’s history is GTA Online. The multiplayer component of GTA 5 is itself a huge and resource-consuming world. And Rockstar doesn’t roll out new campaigns, modes or updates to GTA Online from time to time.
There’s definitely an argument that we’ve had a lot of Rockstar experiments in recent years — they’ve just arrived in the online metropolis of Los Santos, not their own little package. But I’m not sure if I believe it. Whether you’re running a nightclub or seeing Dr. Dre appear, the background and underlying design are all too familiar.
Yes, it also brings quite a bit of change, which is bound to make the idea of venturing into a new 15-hour action game you might have played seem ridiculous.
But isn’t it a thrill to see Rockstar drop the sandbox and build something different? Not that its non-GTA games are better — it’s that having those open-world lessons with the same level of detail as life enhances Rockstar’s other ideas. Those games, in turn, feed back into its tentacles.
These branches, whether pitch or system, benefit something bigger
In GTA 5’s character movement, it’s hard not to feel the importance of Max Payne — tired and hobbled. Or see where LA Noire’s dialogue-heavy approach is stripped down to Red Dead 2’s full-scale verbal interactions. You can even draw the line from the dazzling rug of Rockstar Ping Pong to a series of mini-games that help light up Los Santos. These branches, both in tone and system, benefit something bigger.
without the company of the elderly
Maybe it’s all a byproduct of major changes at the top of the company. First, the strong departure of strong producer Leslie Benzies in 2016 – he’s credited in Manhunt, LA Noire and Max Payne 3, as well as many GTA games.
Then, in 2020, Dan Houser, one of the company’s founders, left. For an executive, Houser’s credit is often as a writer, who created games as diverse as Smuggler’s Run 2, Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2. At the top of the hierarchy, perhaps the appetite to push in different directions isn’t what it used to be.
Whether it’s money from GTA Online, the departure of key characters, or just a desire to focus on hit games, it feels like Rockstar has lost a little bit of mystique in the decade since GTA 5.
As with many aging bands, the gaps between releases are getting longer and the results are starting to sound similar. With GTA 6 likely to remain a mystery for a long time, Rockstar can rediscover some ancient magic by going back to its b-side days and experimenting again.