In a world where it’s trendy to be “the good guy”, Max Payne is a bottom-feeder. Having brutally lost his wife and daughter, Max has plunged himself into alcoholism and drug-addiction to escape the realities of the world. No longer an officer of the law, Max finds himself drowning in local pubs to dull the pain that memory keeps from scarring over. To be frank, Max is a piece of shit; he lives in the gutter and breathes only to continue his addiction.

In Max Payne 3 he continues his descent into nothingness as he escapes his life by retreating to Brazil as a bodyguard only to again be plunged into a crossfire. This ‘escape’ to Brazil is forced as Max ends up in a firefight with the wrong people, killing the son of an important ‘businessman’ who is known for making people disappear, which begins the first of many plot questions: if Max is so self-destructive, why would he be concerned about repercussions from a barroom brawl gone awry?