Remedy says yes to Payne 2 mods

Max Payne modders hoping to extend their projects to the recently announced sequel will be pleased to hear that Remedy has their interests at heart. In an email posted on 3D Realms' website yesterday, the developer said that "the necessary tools to make custom user-made modifications to [Max Payne 2] will be released with the game as the PC version is released this Fall."

Remedy also paid tribute to the "legendary" Kung-Fu mod, and Petri Järvilehto said the developer has been watching mod-development for the original game closely, adding that "it'll be very interesting to see what people can come up with when they get access to the new and much improved toolset of Max Payne 2."

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne was originally announced at E3 this year but kept under lock and key and away from most journalists who made the trip, despite Take-Two splashing a 100-foot logo across the backside of its whitewashed stand. At the time, we were told that the game would be released late this year or early next in Europe on PC, with PS2 and Xbox versions to follow a few months later, but not even our strong-arm tactics got us closer to Max.

Since then, a handful of leaked screenshots, depicting a rugged looking Max diving around and engaging in the odd shotgun stand-off, have been our only real contact with the game, and they haven't told us a great deal about it. Rather like Half-Life 2, anticipation is building steadily, but if Remedy wants to get the same sort of reaction in the long term then it will need to produce goods to rival Valve's jaw-dropping Source engine. Whether it can do that remains to be seen, but like Half-Life, Max Payne was surely one of those "special" titles, and we have high hopes for its successor.