 | |
| Released | October 14, 2003 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Remedy Entertainment |
| Publisher | Rockstar Games |
| Director | Markus Mäki |
| Writer | Sam Lake |
| PotF Tracks | Late Goodbye |
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a 3rd person shooter with a crime noir aesthetic, released on 14th October 2003. The game was developed by Remedy Entertainment as a sequel to the 2001 hit Max Payne.
The game features many elements that would later become staples of Remedy games, such as Norse mythology, environmental storytelling, fourth wall breaks, naming puns, narrative jumping and ventures outside of the game's core genre. James McCaffrey reprises his VA role as Payne and went on to also have roles in Alan Wake and Control. However Sami Järvi (Sam Lake) no longer provides his likeness.
Earlier in 2003, Remedy script-writer Järvi handed a poem he had written to his friend Marko Saaresto, asking him to turn it into a song to use in the upcoming Max Payne 2. Saaresto worked with his Playground bandmate Olli Tukiainen to do so. The song, entitled Late Goodbye, was used as the ending-theme of the game as well as a recurring motif, being sung and whistled by multiple characters. It was produced by Remedy sound engineer Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen, who joined the two shortly after as "Poets of the Fall" due to Saaresto and Tukiainen liking his work.[1]
Following good reception to the song and requests for it to be released, on 30th June 2004, Late Goodbye was released as a CD Single, reaching #14 on the Finnish single charts. The single also reached #2 in YleX's 2004 voting for "Best Finnish song."
Late Goodbye was included as the third track on Signs of Life, the band's 2005 debut album and received a music video directed by Alan Smithee (a pseudonym for Tuomas Harju, who appears to have disowned the work). The video features a late night motel in the middle-of-nowhere, which would become a recurring theme in Remedy games including the pivotal Oceanview Motel that connects the Remedy Connected Universe.
Remedy has since frequently worked with Poets of the Fall on later games Alan Wake, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Control and the upcoming Alan Wake II, sometimes under the pseudonym Old Gods of Asgard. Marko and Olli had also portrayed comic strip characters in the original Max Payne, which Captain had also worked on.
Remedy have been unable to officially include the Max Payne games in their Connected Universe due to the rights to the game being owned by Rockstar. This is likely why Alan Wake reworked the titular Payne into the non-copyright-infringing Alex Casey, who is due to have a prominent role in the upcoming Alan Wake II. However many nods and references are present that tie the company's entire catalogue of releases together, regardless of publisher restrictions. For instance, despite Poets of the Fall's lack of presence, there are heavy references to Old Gods of Asgard in Quantum Break, which is owned by Microsoft. A remake of Max Payne 2 is currently in development, again published by Rockstar so inter-game references are likely to continue to be of the easter egg variety.
Trivia
- Lake remarked that basic, archetypal film noir elements found in many classics of the genre "can go a long way" when telling a story, and gave examples that included a hostile, crime-ridden city; a story that takes place late at night with heavy rain; and a cynical, hard-boiled detective down on his luck.[2] This view that reduces concepts to archetypes is very similar to a key concept from Control, where for instance the Service Weapon, Mjölnir, Excalibur, and Varunastra are the same archetypal thing - with its form defined by the Collective Unconscious's perception of an appropriate weapon in a given historical era.[3] This is also similar to the concept Marko spoke about in interview - if you read any of my lyrics, you would need me to be there and tell you what I meant so that you could understand where I come from. Otherwise it’s just you reading the lyrics and finding out where you come from.[4]