The games later inspired a feature film of the same name. Its success launched the Max Payne franchise, starting with Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne in 2003. The game won a large number of accolades upon its release, including the BAFTA Award. Max Payne received very positive reviews and was praised for its exciting gunplay and use of noir storytelling devices, with some citing it as one of the best video games ever made. The gameplay is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action cinema genre, particularly the work of director John Woo, and it was one of the first games to feature the bullet-time effect popularized by The Matrix. The game contains many allusions to Norse mythology, particularly the myth of Ragnarök, and several of the names used in the game are allusions to Norse mythology. It features a gritty neo-noir style and uses graphic novel panels (with voice-overs) as the primary means of telling the game's story, drawing inspiration from hard-boiled detective novels by authors like Mickey Spillane.

While doing so, Max becomes entangled in a large and complex conspiracy, involving a major pharmaceutical company, organized crime, a secret society, and the U.S. The game centers on former NYPD detective Max Payne, who attempts to solve the murder of his family while investigating a drug trafficking case involving a mysterious new designer drug called 'Valkyr'. The game was also re-released in 2012 as a downloadable game in the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation 3 under the PS2 classics banner, iOS, Android, and in April 2016 for the PlayStation 4 as a PS2 emulated downloadable game in the PlayStation Store. The game was re-released on 27 April 2009 as a downloadable game in the Xbox Originals program for the Xbox 360. A Dreamcast version of the game was also planned, but got canceled due to the discontinuation of the console.

A Mac OS port was published on 16 July 2002 by MacSoft in North America and Feral Interactive in the rest of the world. Ports for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox and a tie-in game for the Game Boy Advance were later released by Rockstar Games. Max Payne is a third-person shooter video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Gathering of Developers in July 2001 for Microsoft Windows.

Max payne 1 graphics mod