In combat, auto-aim and a cover system can be used as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, painkillers can be used to regenerate health. Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies. In action sequences, bullet time can be used; using this feature, it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. The game also utilizes a "Last Stand" mechanic, granting players a grace period when health is fully depleted, allowing them to kill the enemy that last wounded them, but depleting all their current bullet-time. After using the shoot-dodge mechanic, which enables players to dodge enemies by diving, players may shoot at any angle while remaining grounded.
Multiplayer
The online multiplayer mode features maps and modes that dynamically change within a match. Up to 16 players engage in cooperative or competitive gameplay in re-creations of multiple single-player settings. Players may band together in organized player teams called crews to complete tasks together. Players can create their own crews, via the Rockstar Games Social Club, and join up to five total. Crews win multiplayer matches to earn experience points and climb online leaderboards.
Synopsis
Setting
According to Rockstar's president Sam Houser, it was their intention to start a new chapter of Max Payne's life with the game: "This is Max as we've never seen him before, a few years older, more world-weary and cynical than ever." The press release states that since the last game, Max has left New York City behind and "drifted from bad to worse." The press release goes on to say Max has been double-crossed in this new city and is searching for both the truth and a way out. The game is set in São Paulo, Brazil, several years after the events of the ending of the second game. Max Payne now works in executive protection for the wealthy Rodrigo Branco and his family in the hopes of escaping the memories of his troubled past. When a street gang kidnaps Rodrigo's wife, Fabiana, Max is pulled into a conspiracy of shadowy, warring factions threading every aspect of São Paulo society in a deadly web that threatens to engulf everyone and everything around him.
Plot
Nine years after the events of the second game, Max Payne (James McCaffrey) has retired from the NYPD and spends his days at a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey, nursing his alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers. One evening, a man named Raul Passos (Julian Dean) approaches Max, claiming to be a police academy batchmate, and offers him a new job, which Max turns down. But, during a drunk and violent argument, Max shoots the son of local mob boss Anthony DeMarco (Ray Iannicelli), who puts a price on his head and orders the entirety of New Jersey's crime underlings to kill Max. After killing most of his gang with Passos' help, Max decides to leave his old life behind, taking Passos' job offer as a private security contractor in South America.
Max and Passos work for the wealthy Branco family in São Paulo, consisting of three brothers: Rodrigo (Frank Rodriguez), a real-estate mogul; Victor (Robert Montano), a local politician who aspires to be the city's next mayor; and Marcelo (Dillon Porter), a hard-partying socialite. At a private party, Max saves Rodrigo and his trophy wife Fabiana (Benedita Pereira) from an attempted kidnapping by members of the Comando Sombra, a favela street gang. A few nights later, as Max escorts Fabiana and her friends to a nightclub, the gang attacks again, successfully kidnapping Fabiana and demanding a ransom of $3 million. Max and Passos deliver the ransom to a local football stadium to make the exchange, but the deal is disrupted by the Crachá Preto, an outlaw paramilitary unit, who kill the Comando Sombra and steal the money. After escaping the stadium, Max and Passos raid a Comando Sombra base along the Tiete river to rescue Fabiana, but are unable to prevent the gang's leader, Serrano (Babs Olusanmokun), from escaping with her. After they report their failure to the Brancos, Victor suggests they rely on Armando Becker (Ubirajara de Castro) and his special police unit Unidade de Forças Especiais (UFE) to oversee Fabiana's safe return. Victor, Passos, Marcelo and Becker leave via helicopter, moments before the Crachá Preto abruptly raid the Branco offices.
Max fights off the Crachá Preto and returns to Rodrigo's secured office to find him assassinated. Upon interrogating a wounded Crachá Preto soldier, Max learns that Fabiana is being held by Serrano in the Nova Esperança favela and that the Crachá Preto raid was meant for Max, as vengeance for the deaths of their operatives at the stadium. Blaming himself for what has transpired, Max swears off alcohol, shaves his head, and informs Victor and Marcelo that he is going undercover into Nova Esperança to save Fabiana. He gets lost in the sprawling favela, but is assisted by Detective Wilson Da Silva (Stephen Girasuolo), who reveals that the Crachá Preto have engaged in illicit deals with the Brancos, and suspects that Victor and UFE might also be involved. Max eventually finds Fabiana, only for her to be executed by Serrano. Marcelo and Fabiana's sister Giovanna (Shirley Rumierk), who showed up with cash attempting to ransom Fabiana's freedom, are kidnapped as the UFE raid the favela. Max follows the raid and witnesses UFE collaborate with the Crachá Preto, selling them the people they arrested during the assault. Max then witnesses the Crachá Preto necklace Marcelo, and escapes with Giovanna. Fleeing from the militia, Giovanna is rescued by Passos, but Max is abandoned, later saved by Da Silva.
Da Silva reveals that Passos worked for Victor until he hired Max. Max remembers that when he and Passos worked as security for Marcelo's yacht party, which was attacked by military brigands in the Panama Canal, he escaped the yacht to find Marcelo and Passos trying to drive away with unknown cargo. Max realizes that he was recruited by Passos to be the fall guy for whatever illicit activity the Brancos were involved in. Da Silva deduces that Max was set up by Passos and Victor, so the latter would gain access to his brother's wealth and garner sympathy for the upcoming mayoral elections. He then informs Max about a rundown hotel where the Crachá Preto and UFE are seen delivering prisoners. After Max discovers it is the base for a black market organ theft ring and corrupt UFE officers are being paid to deliver the detainees for organ harvesting, he frees the remaining detainees, including Serrano, who subsequently kills the corrupt surgeon performing the organ removals.
Max sets explosives to destroy the entire complex, but is held at gunpoint by Crachá Preto's leader, Alvaro Neves. Passos reappears, kills Neves and flies Max out as the building implodes. Afterwards, Passos explains that Marcelo and Victor forced him to cooperate in getting Rodrigo to finance Victor. Passos apologizes to Max, who forgives him, before he flees the city with Giovanna, who is pregnant with his child and extremely grateful to Max for being able to keep her alive. Giovanna also refuses to let Max take the blame for her sister Fabiana's death stating that it wasn't his fault and that Fabiana married into a twisted family. Da Silva suggests that Max stage his surrender to the police in order to find incriminating evidence linking the UFE and Victor to the crimes of the Crachá Preto and the Comando Sombra. After doing so, Max escapes into UFE headquarters as planned, finding evidence that a UFE lieutenant named Bachmeyer killed Rodrigo. After Max kills Bachmeyer, he confronts Becker, but is held at gunpoint by Victor, who explains that he ordered the Crachá Preto to ambush the stadium exchange; the organ harvesting ring was funded by the stolen ransom money.
