# Control Resonant isn’t the first time Remedy has visited Manhattan

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/control-resonant-isnt-the-first-time-remedy-has-visited-manhattan/
- Published: 2026-07-23T15:30:12+00:00
- Updated: 2026-07-23T23:27:36+00:00
- Original publisher: Polygon
- Original article: https://www.polygon.com/max-payne-25th-anniversary-retrospective/
- Topics: Gaming

## Key points

- Max Payne established Remedy’s dark Manhattan vision 25 years ago.
- Noir storytelling and bullet time made the shooter memorable.
- Ageing console controls and checkpoints remain significant drawbacks.

## Summary

Remedy Entertainment’s forthcoming Control Resonant will return to a stylised Manhattan in 2026, but Polygon argues that the studio’s memorable treatment of New York began 25 years earlier with Max Payne. The retrospective highlights how the original game used a snowy, threatening city and a hard-boiled noir story to make its setting central to Max’s grief-driven quest for revenge.

Released first on PC before arriving on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Max Payne follows a former New York police officer whose wife and daughter are killed by drug-addled intruders, leading him undercover into the criminal network behind the drug. Its graphic-novel panels, narration by James McCaffrey and pioneering “bullet time” gunplay remain distinctive, although the article notes that ageing visuals, an inverted console camera axis, scarce healing items and limited checkpoints can make modern console play frustrating.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.