"The consensus at the time was that people hated it."

Image credit: Rockstar Games.

Max Payne 3 is a bit of a strange project. Unlike its two predecessors, the game wasn't developed by original creator Remedy Entertainment, rather it was the product of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption studio Rockstar Games .

Despite that pedigree, it is seen as something of a failure - or, at least, not quite what fans wanted from the third game in the iconic third-person shooter series. And Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar, says it was his fault.

In a wide-ranging interview with IGN , Houser, who was also Max Payne 3's lead writer, recalled his experience working on the game and how it differed from other Rockstar projects.

"It was a linear game, so it was a little different from writing an open-world game, a little more structured," Houser said. "I really enjoyed that as an experience.…