Here's What the Next Few Months of Max Payne 3 DLC Will Look Like

Among life's many inevitables, "video games having DLC" is beginning to rank pretty highly on the list. It's not quite in that upper echelon with death, taxes, and disappointment in your fellow man, but it's getting there. Given this inevitability, it should come as no surprise that Rockstar Games today announced the upcoming slate of DLC packs for its forthcoming action sequel, Max Payne 3. What might be surprising is just how much of it Rockstar has in the pipes.

Starting today, eventual Max Payne 3 players will have the option to pre-order the Rockstar Pass, a season pass designed to give you an overall 35% discount, should you want to own all of the DLC. The pass itself costs 2400 MS Points, or $29.99 on PSN.

The first pack will arrive in June. Titled the Local Justice map pack, which includes the "Police Precinct" map, as well as a couple of others, available for use in Max Payne 3's various multiplayer mode.

The rest of the packs don't have details yet, but they do have titles and timeframes for release. They are as follows:

Summer 2012

• Disorganized Crime Map Pack
• Deathmatch Made In Heaven Mode Pack
• Hostage Negotiation Map Pack
• New York Minute Co-Op Pack

Fall 2012

• Painful Memories Map Pack
• Trickle Down Economics Map Pack

As you can see, this DLC slate is perhaps a little heavy on the map packs, but there is at least one co-op pack planned (which is interesting, since we haven't really seen any co-op options in this game before), as well as the curious-sounding "Deathmatch Made In Heaven" mode pack. The game already has a deathmatch mode, so this is...what?

For those immediately scoffing at all of this, believe me, I understand. However, I will say I've heard from a variety of different people that Max Payne 3's multiplayer is actually pretty good. So, while I don't necessarily recommend running out and pre-ordering that season pass, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, either. And for those who just want the single-player, at least it doesn't look like you'll have to buy a bunch of extra content just to flesh out the story properly. Lord knows there's been a lot of that going around lately.

Wonder if this multiplayer is gonna be any good...

I really hope the Painful Memories pack is just multiplayer versions of Max's nightmares from 1 and 2.

I rather have single player stuff though..

@Kierkegaard: They are definitely betting on it. From the few multiplayer previews out there they do say it is pretty awesome though.

From the videos they have released of the Multiplayer I can honestly say that I have very high hopes for it. The mode where you are Max and his friend and then the rest are enemies trying to kill you looks really cool.

Errr... hmm. Even if the MP does look like it'll be surprisingly good, I don't think I'm really willing to spend that much primarily just for maps, and for something that is still just a shooter, regardless of the bullet time. I imagine I'll have had my fill with it all long before the season pass is over. But I dunno, I'm excited to give the MP a go all the same.

So much content is actually turning me off, i guess. Would prefer if they went the GTA IV route and released huge packs. Won't having this many options segment the community?

I just need to create a template for my response to all DLC announcements.

Don't care for any MP packs. To me, MP packs are always useless. Their interest, and thus value drops super fast. No one plays Red Dead Redemption's DLC MP modes anymore, for instance. I'd rather have SP stuff, but then again, maybe its just complete right off the bat.

I am not really big on buying multiplayer map packs.

A release calendar and info packet regarding DLC is something I haven't seen before.

I really enjoy being sold on extra content to games I haven't played yet. It's not like my interest in DLC is in any way tied to my enjoyment of the main game or anything.....

All DLC news does for me these days is remind me of how much things have changed since it was introduced. How could something that brought so much hope and excitement turn into this ? =/

I wish there was a Kung-fu Mod pack...loved playing that on the PC.

I'll play the multiplayer for abit, not getting map packs though.

Right then. No need to worry about purchasing Max Payne dlc.

@Meatsim: yea I did that for the first map pack of MW3, and the new maps are just ok, prolly the only ones ill get. Be the same with MP3 I imagine. Looking forward to the multiplayer a lot

I appreciate that Rockstar is this open and they let people know the future DLC plans.

This way no one is hoping for single player DLC that is never going to show.

Kind of pleased as I probably won't be worrying about it. Max Payne just isn't the kind of game I play in multiplayer for very long.

Glad they listed the details and plans for release but $30 bucks for DLC is a bit high. That's half the price of the entire game. $10 to $20 should be the limit.

Seeing DLC announced like this and such a large amount tends to put me off buying the game. Release a content rich, fun, bug free game and when I'm satisfied with my purchase then we can talk about handing over more money.

Sweet, I love paying $90.00 for video games!

This sucks dick. At least the DLC that costs more than half of a full game isn't enticing at all. Best case scenario is the multiplayer is good and fun for a few weeks. Just because you schedule map packs for 6 months after release doesn't mean it will last that long.

Still can't wait to play the game, but this shit is wack.

This makes me sad.

7 fucking packs of dlc before the game is even out yet. Clearly the focus doesn't seem to be on the SP or anything.

I would hope that the SP experience feels like the total package day one. That's why all the DLC revolves around MP stuff... I hope.

Bummer, no interest in MP. Not what I come to Max Payne for. I hope there is some single player DLC in the works.

Uninterested in the multiplayer side of things, then again Uncharted 2 kept me coming back to its multiplayer for over a year so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised enough to buy one of these. Makes you think they haven't packed in many maps into the game itself at launch

Trickle down economics pack is a great name

My favorite part of this generation is the way devs and publishers seems to not care about dividing the community that plays their game online. An example would be Gears of War 3. I feel with all the maps it comes with plus the 3 or 4 you get to download for free are more than enough to hold the game over. However, I have friends that dont want to play with me because I havent purchased nor do I plan to buy more maps for the game that feels fine the way it is. This results in all of us playing something else instead

One step forward, one step back. Shouldn't we be past the point where we have to pay for maps? Rockstar is one of the developers I'll point out as an example on how to do DLC right, sometimes. They had great DLC for GTA IV. Not just maps, skins or guns, but expansions. All those little goodies were inside two new chunks of game. Even though the exclusive deal was a shitty move, they went the right way. Then came Red Dead Redemption, and it stank things up a little with the exclusive pre-order weapons and clothes clusterfuck dlc. But they made it up with Undead Nightmare, and some promising multiplayer modes (some free!) that weren't only the run-of-the-mill deathmatch modes. L.A. Noire didn't manage to go further with it, but that production had problems anyway. They introduced the online-pass, which is not necessarily a bad idea. But those additional cases could've been left out (or in), and the new wardrobe was completely useless once you beat the game. It just didn't play to the tune of the game. ...But that production had problems anyway.

Were/are they ever trying to hit it out of the park at some point, or do they think they got things figured out by now? Cause this sounds like they will continue riding on the same L.A. Noire level of DLC distribution from here on out. Online-Pass, with things that shouldn't be used as something to excite people over a Max Payne game.

I like Rockstar. I like what they're doing. But they could do so much better.

After the gears 3 season pass I will most than likely skip this. Most of them were map packs and I still haven't played on most of them I play mostly horde. Im kinda done with Map Packs I want content that's actually worth it.

I would have thought the 'pay for map packs' idea would have died off by now. I know CoD makes a lot of money from it, but for almost every other game I've played it just splits the playerbase.

The way games like Bad Company 2 and various free to play shooters do it is the way to go - add extra maps/variations on existing maps for free over a few months.

Getting bad Gears of War 3 memories with season pass.

Hope Jeff sacrifices his wallet again.

Well guess I won't be picking any of these up since I won't be going into the multiplayer.

If they were going to do this from the start, I would rather they have just charged 40 dollars for the singleplayer game only, then charge me 30 dollars for the multiplayer and this trickled-out content so that I could have a full experience at a fair price.

I mean, how many maps are in the standard multiplayer? From the sounds of all these map packs, it's like there are only 3 or 4 or something.

Either way, 90+ dollars just seems crazy to me.

Saved me monies (sort of), though now I'm back to wondering about the SP, which Max Payne traditionally put first.

I'm glad they at least tell you what the content is before hand (predominantly competitive MP stuff).
 
But it does seem like a lot of money down without knowing a) the quality of the game as a whole, b) the quality of the multiplayer and c) the quality of the actual DLC content (and I guess who will be playing that stuff).

@bybeach said:

Saved me monies (sort of), though now I'm back to wondering about the SP, which Max Payne traditionally put first.

Iplayed some at PAX East, and though it was a very brief demo the Single Player seemed to be absolutely stellar. I wouldn't worry =)

How many people actually pre-order dlc? Enough to make this a trend? Cause it seems a little silly

I was interested in Max Payne 3, but once I found out it has mulitplayer, I lost interest.

@TekZero: That's quite a odd stance to take.

I'll wait for the GOTY edition.

@OneFreeman said:

@TekZero: That's quite a odd stance to take.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't really hyped about it in the first place. But I play Max Payne for the story not for multiplayer.

And, I'd rather not support the trend of putting multiplayer into established single player games.

maybe im crazy but i thought the gears 3 season pass was great. new maps plus raams shadow

i dont think i will be all that into the multiplayer. but hey i do like co op! 

I hope this turns out like Red Dead Redemption and we have a bunch of Multiplayer DLC followed by surprise Single Player DLC late in the year but I guess if that was going to be part of the Rockstar Pass they would have had to announce that already.

Map Packs? A great way to split an online community.

Uh ya. I would like to try multiplayer first before jumping on a season pass.

This DLC shit is getting fucking ridiculous.

Local Justice sounds kind of crappy. There only being three maps I'm sure will be reflected in the price, but only one of them is playable in all modes.

Details like that makes me extra not want to opt for a season pass. Doubt I ever will. Not comfortable paying for stuff before I know what said stuff is. Though Rockstar has admittedly done better than others, which usually say something like "Get over 30 pieces of content!". What does that mean? Here you at least know that it's all multiplayer and all map packs except the one thing. Or is "CO-OP PACK" a map pack or an expansion that adds co-op? Who knows.