Remedy's Sam Lake Shares the Inspiration Behind Max Payne Cover Art

Sam Lake, the writer behind the original Max Payne game, has revealed how their Photoshop experiment ended up becoming the inspiration for the game’s cover art. The veteran game director, who was the face of the titular character in Max Payne, also stars on the 2001 action game’s cover.

Even more than two decades after its release, Max Payne continues to be a popular name among gamers, thanks to the indelible mark it left on the game industry. Remedy Entertainment’s magnum opus is a highly rated, award-winning third-person shooter that is often regarded as one of the best action games in history. Features like Max Payne‘s distinct neo-noir theme and its innovative Bullet Time gameplay mechanic set the title apart from its contemporaries at the time of its launch. In addition, the game’s writer, who also provided their likeness for Max Payne’s character model, Sam Lake, also soared in popularity among fans, almost gaining celebrity-like status over time.

In a new revelation on Twitter, Remedy Creative Director Sam Lake shared how their dabbling in Photoshop was the starting point for the cover art of Max Payne. They said that they created the black-and-white base image featured in the Rockstar Games-published title cover art while “messing around” in Adobe’s image editing software which they “don’t really know how to use.” Moreover, Lake revealed that one of the pictures from the “graphic novel shoots,” apparently done for the game’s comic strip-like cutscenes, was used for producing the monochromatic image of Max Payne. Highlighting the barebones nature of this image, he said, “It was not the final art you see here, but it was the inspiration that led to it.”

Fans React to the Story Behind Max Payne’s Cover Art

Lake’s interesting trivia about Max Payne gathered a lot of positive response from fans on Twitter. A user commented that the cover was “really iconic in my gaming history.” Another underlined the humble origins of the game’s cover art, saying “Once again, proof that just sort of being goofy and messing around can create all sorts of cool things!” One of the replies noted the irony behind the cover art’s origins and noted how Lake “made one of the most memorable art” through “just messing around in Photoshop.”

Meanwhile, Remedy Entertainment is working on the development of Max Payne 1&2 remake, which sees both the 2001 original and its 2003 sequel built from the ground-up for modern systems. Back in August, in its financial report, the Finland-based studio shared that the remake project had moved onto full production. However, there was no mention of a release window.

As fans wait for the first game in the franchise since 2013’s Max Payne 3, they can look forward to the newly announced Remedyverse game, FBC: Firebreak, which is slated for release in 2025 on all platforms. The three-player co-op title revolves around the Federal Bureau of Control, a fictional government agency introduced in 2019’s Control. Notably, FBC: Firebreak will also be the first self-published game from Remedy Entertainment, marking the beginning of a new era for the Finnish developer.

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Max Payne is a man with nothing to lose in the violent, cold urban night. A fugitive undercover cop framed for murder, hunted by cops and the mob, Max is a man with his back against the wall, fighting a battle he cannot hope to win. Max Payne is a relentless story-driven game about a man on the edge, fighting to clear his name while struggling to uncover the truth about his slain family amongst a myriad of plot-twists and twisted thugs in the gritty bowels of New York during the century’s worst blizzard.

The groundbreaking original cinematic action-shooter, Max Payne introduced the concept of Bullet Time® in videogames. Through its stylish slow-motion gunplay combined with a dark and twisted story, Max Payne redefined the action-shooter genre.

Franchise

Max Payne

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Released

July 23, 2001

Publisher(s)

Gathering of Developers

Engine

MaxFX

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ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood, Violence

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