The pacing would need to be pitch perfect, guaranteeing that when you go through the story the first time, you never feel like everything is rote or repetitive.
I wouldn't mind HEALTH returning to do the soundtrack, but it would need a completely different vibe, so I think I'd go with somebody else. I'd write the script (of course).Īlso, skippable cutscenes. One's good enough, but two would wear out the welcome. I liked Max Payne 3's storyline, but I don't think I want another Houser-written one. I'd like to try to blend the best of both writing styles. I would see if I could hew back to a Remedy style of plot and humour, but I don't want it to sound like a ripoff of them either.
Not there is anything wrong with it, but it's a specific Houser style that I wouldn't want to try. I'd drop some of the Rockstar preachiness about America. Kinda like having the feel of doing insanely random things in GTA, but transferred over to a linear third person shooter. I also want the player to take advantage of the environment as much as possible. I'd keep the Max Payne 3 style of carrying the guns and stealing weapons off of dead folks, and I'd make the environment in most areas pretty destructable to make it look like your actions have a lot of effect in the environment. The game has to be fast, but still have some weight and heft to it. I'd take Euphoria and like, MAX that shit out to make it realistic as possible. In terms of gameplay, rather than just throw waves and waves of enemies after Max, I'd have fewer enemies that are just smarter and tougher and require you to be faster to deal with them. A group of dirty cops would be the first set of enemies that come after Max, driving him out of the city. Perhaps the LAPD are corrupt and he's put on the no-fly list. We'll figure out a reason why they can't just fly (lol). They have to escape LA and head to New York where the answers are. There's a bounty put on his head by some mysterious figure and Max has to unravel the mystery all while protecting some witness or something. However, he gets wrapped up in one final insane case. Unlike the first three games however, he's actually doing alright. Start with Max as a low-rent PI in LA after the events of the third game. Here's how I'd set it up: Insane cross-country noir road trip. How do you make this game? What story elements do you include? Gameplay elements? Locales? Max's personality? Narrative devices? Gunplay? Music? What do you keep from Max Payne 3? What do you throw away? From the first two?
Let's say Rockstar put you in charge of Max Payne 4 for the PC and current gen consoles.