Highlights
- A mod for Max Payne 3 allows players to switch out the character's new face for the original face based on Sam Lake, one of the writers and designers of the series.
- The mod integrates Sam Lake's face seamlessly into the character model, preserving all of Max's facial expressions and even adapting different hairstyles to fit the new face.
- While Sam Lake has moved on to other projects, his face is still closely associated with the iconic character, and mods like this one help keep the original version of Max Payne alive.
A Max Payne 3 mod lets players swap out Max’s new face for his original face, which was based on the face of Sam Lake, one of the original writers and level designers of the Max Payne series. Lake worked on the first two entries in the series before moving on to develop a pair of new original franchises, leaving the development of Max Payne 3 in the able hands of Rockstar Games. Subsequent entries in the series used different face models.
Sami Antero Jarvi, who goes by the pen name Sam Lake, is the Creative Director at Remedy Entertainment. After writing and designing levels for the first two entries in the Max Payne series, Lake spearheaded the Alan Wake and Control franchises. The face of actor Timmothy Gibs was used as Max’s character model for Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. After development work on Max Payne 3 was handed off from Remedy to Rockstar Games, which also acted as the game’s publisher, Max’s iconic face was again replaced with an entirely new one. Actor James McCaffrey finally got the chance to be the face of Max Payne after having voiced the character since the first entry in the series.
A mod available on Nexus Mods created by a user named AlexSavvy aims to bring an updated version of the old Max Payne/Sam Lake character model, face included, into Max Payne 3 with stunning definition and clarity. Simply and elegantly titled “Sam Lake Mod,” the texture reskin is a little more than just a new face slapped onto a character model. Sam Lake’s face is fully integrated into Max Payne 3’s character model. All of Max’s facial expressions displayed during gameplay and cutscenes have been fully preserved, right down to the beads of sweat that dribble down Max’s head in real-time.
Max’s hairstyle changes 14 times throughout the story, so AlexSavvy made sure each change in style was specifically modeled to fit Sam Lake’s head, so it’s not just an ill-fitting port from the original Max Payne 3 character model. AlexSavvy made sure the rest of the body from the neck down bared a closer resemblance to the thinner frame of the Sam Lake version of the character. This meant refitting every outfit Max wears throughout the story to the new character model, including the classic leather jacket and Hawaiian shirt combo Max wore throughout the first game in the series and wears partly through the third entry.
Sam Lake may have moved onto different projects, including the X-Files-esque Control, and is currently in development on a new Alan Wake game, but his face is the one many players will most commonly associate with the gritty, revenge-seeking anti-hero with the pulp crime novel name. It only seems fitting that mods like AlexSavvy’s preserve Lake’s face to keep the original version of the character alive.
Max Payne 3 is available on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Source: Nexus Mods