Lake had already pitched the idea of using graphic novel panels for the game’s cutscenes, casting himself in several ‘heavily Photoshopped’ examples. But the advantages, says Mäki, already spoke for themselves: “With a graphic novel, the nuances are there in the head of the reader, and it would be much harder to reach that level with in-game or even prerendered cinematics. Now you can do that stuff believably; back then it was a different ballgame. And there was the other reason: production.

“We did a lot of streamlining and reorganisation of the story anyway – but once you had the graphic novels you could cut them up, put them on walls, follow the whole game and say: ‘You know, that should really be there’. And in 30 seconds you’d made a dramatic plot change. Even if it meant redoing some of the imagery, you were talking a day or two instead of a week of doing cinematics.”



Fans and critics know only too well, of course, the side-effect of Lake’s proposal: a fourth-wall-shattering twist worthy of Stephen King, which saw the writer awake one morning to find he’d become his character. “We were still talking about this rise of photorealism and at the time it didn’t feel like a big deal,” he admits of having his own face wrapped around Max’s polygonal chunk of a head. “With all these hand-painted pictures, no one would have recognized me anyway. Fast-forward a couple of years to the end of the project, though, when we’re using photographs for all the textures in the game, and there I was. At that point, the idea might have given me pause.”

He insists it was fun, however, with his expanding role including casting many of his friends and relatives as the game’s crooked line-up of cops, executives, politicians and thugs. “And if you look at us, we’re not exactly Italian mobsters,” admits Vanhatalo. “So we were like: ‘Quick! Check out the guy delivering the pizzas. Get him over here for a while’.” The game’s credits, we’re told, are a cornucopia of cousins, fathers and girlfriends, with the occasional industry figure tossed in. One is now CTO at AMD.

Is Lake recognised in the street? “At trade shows like E3, mostly, where I’d been doing countless demos of Max Payne or Alan Wake. There was this one time a couple of years ago when I was walking home from the office in Espoo; it’s a nice neighbourhood, but the street was totally deserted apart from me and this car. It slows down and I see these four guys peering out of the window. Then it turns round, passes me again and stops in front of me. Two climb out and shout at me to stop, and by this time I’m nervous enough already. Then they proceed to ask me if I’m Max Payne; they want my autograph. It happens rarely, luckily enough. Finns are reserved people. We rarely talk to strangers.

“The whole thing did end up being quite a lot of work, though. That was one of the reasons I didn’t want to do it for the sequel, because the schedule was much tighter and there was much more story. The screenplay of the first game was something like 150-160 pages – for the sequel it ended up being 600. It didn’t make any sense to waste a month or more of precious writing time for those photo shoots again. First time around, we didn’t have a choice.”



A logical progression at a glance, with better physics, acting talent and the obligatory combo moves, Max Payne 2 was an altogether different proposition for its creator. Take-Two’s purchase of publisher The Gathering had muddied any prior relationship with Rockstar Games, whose interest had nonetheless produced valiant, difficult ports of the first Max Payne for consoles. Now, the obstructions were gone.

“They’re a very eccentric company that works in strange ways,” says Vanhatalo. “But surprisingly compatible. I don’t recall a single instance where someone was trying to steer us into doing this when we really wanted to do that. We were on the same page the whole time.” “I do remember some Stranglehold-esque proposals from one of the Rockstar producers, for Mexican stand-offs, stuff like that. But the time really wasn’t right,” adds Mäki. “But we both wanted to go higher on the production values and be more ambitious with the story. They’re straightforward and honest guys: they expect a lot but deliver a lot when you need them. After five years of working with them, I don’t think anyone has anything bad to say.”