Every Max Payne game, ranked
All 3 Max Payne games we hold, spanning 2001 to 2012: 3 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 94,468 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (GamingPickz Score 8.1), the highest-rated entry we can score.
- For canon order: begin with Max Payne (2001) and follow the release-order timeline below.
The Max Payne games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 3 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
3 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 3 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Mobile
- Multi-platform
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
3 best Max Payne games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
- 1
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Best for: A consistently well-received pick in this category
8.1GamingPickz Scorehigh confidenceMax Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne at a glance Released 2003 Studio Not recorded Player sentiment 94% positive of 14,615 Critics 86/100 Price $2.49 Steam Deck playable Install size Not stated Accessibility 0 declared features Raw 94% shrinks to 93.7 on 14,615 reviews, then blends with the 86 critic aggregate, giving 8.1.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- 2
Max Payne
Best for: A consistently well-received pick in this category
8.0GamingPickz Scorehigh confidenceMax Payne at a glance Released 2001 Studio Not recorded Player sentiment 89% positive of 15,818 Critics 89/100 Price $3.49 Steam Deck unknown Install size Not stated Accessibility 0 declared features Raw 89% shrinks to 88.9 on 15,818 reviews, then blends with the 89 critic aggregate, giving 8.0.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
Max Payne 3 at a glance Released 2012 Studio Rockstar Vancouver Player sentiment 87% positive of 64,035 Critics 87/100 Price $5.99 Steam Deck playable Install size Not stated Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 87% shrinks to 87.0 on 64,035 reviews, then blends with the 87 critic aggregate, giving 7.9.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
Best and worst entry
The best-received Max Payne game we can score is Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne at 8.1. The lowest is Max Payne 3 at 7.9, a 0.2-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
How the series scored over time
GamingPickz Score against release year, 2001 to 2012. It has held roughly steady across the years.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne at $2.49. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the Max Payne entries on Steam:
- Playable: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Max Payne 3
Platforms across the series
Where the 3 Max Payne games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 3 of 3 |
| PlayStation | 3 of 3 |
| Xbox | 3 of 3 |
| Mobile | 1 of 3 |
The Max Payne series, game by game
Every Max Payne game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2001
- 2003
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is a violent, film-noir love story. Dark, tragic and intense, the in-depth story is a thrill-ride of shocking twists and revelations. Love hurts. (Steam)
Plot
See also: Max Payne (series) § Characters Comic panels are used as cutscenes to provide plot exposition in the game. Two years after the events of the first game , Max Payne ( James McCaffrey ) has been acquitted of the charges against him and reinstated in his old job as a detective for the NYPD, thanks to his connections to the Inner Circle secret society . The story is narrated from Max's perspective, who recalls the events of the past few days. (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Max Payne 2 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, while the PS2 version received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Steve Polak of the Australian The Daily Telegraph , who enjoyed the first Max Payne game, also praised Max Payne 2 , calling it an "outstanding" game that "keeps alive the sense of atmosphere and engaging gunplay-oriented action that was so exciting in the first release. "… (Wikipedia)
- 2012
Max Payne 3
7.9No longer a New York City cop, Max Payne moves to São Paulo to protect a wealthy family in an effort to finally escape his troubled past. This complete edition of Max Payne 3 includes the complete original game and all previously released downloadable content. (Steam)
Plot
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… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Max Payne 3 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Game Informer gave the game 9. 25/10, stating "As much as Max Payne 3 is a fascinating portrait of a man, it tells a great, action-packed story that runs in-stride with Max's inner turmoil. (Wikipedia)
Max Payne, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
Max Payne vs other series
How Max Payne stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: Max Payne vs Doom, Max Payne vs Just Cause, Max Payne vs Serious Sam, Max Payne vs Wolfenstein, Max Payne vs Borderlands, Max Payne vs Crysis, Max Payne vs Dead Island, Max Payne vs Dishonored, Max Payne vs F.E.A.R., Max Payne vs Quake, Max Payne vs Red Faction, Max Payne vs Sniper Elite, Max Payne vs Sniper Ghost Warrior, Max Payne vs State of Decay, Max Payne vs Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Max Payne vs America's Army, Max Payne vs BioShock, Max Payne vs Bright Memory, Max Payne vs Deep Rock Galactic, Max Payne vs Friday the 13th, Max Payne vs Homefront, Max Payne vs Infestation, Max Payne vs Killing Floor, Max Payne vs Left 4 Dead, Max Payne vs Metal Gear, Max Payne vs Outlast, Max Payne vs POSTAL, Max Payne vs Prototype, Max Payne vs RAGE, Max Payne vs Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne vs Sea of Thieves, Max Payne vs Shadow Warrior, Max Payne vs Slime Rancher, Max Payne vs Sniper, Max Payne vs Squad, Max Payne vs Subnautica, Max Payne vs The Evil Within, Max Payne vs Thief, Max Payne vs World War, Max Payne vs Z1 Battle Royale, Max Payne vs Zombie Army
Common questions
How many Max Payne games are there?
We hold 3 Max Payne games in the catalogue, released between 2001 and 2012. 3 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which Max Payne game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne rates highest at 8.1. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the Max Payne games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2001 to 2012. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
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