Heartwarming / Max Payne 3

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• When Passos meets Max in New Jersey, they enjoy a few drinks together. It's enough to keep Max from feeling his usual self. Their friendship even brings the attention of an attractive brunette woman in a leopard-print jacket. Since it's still a Max Payne game, the scene barely lasts a minute.
• The end and probably the one time of the whole damn series it's played straight! After letting Victor Branco face justice (who is found hanged in his cell, having committed suicide or possibly been killed), it's revealed that Max is on a beach in Bahia, ordering a soda from the bar, and walking across the beach facing the sunrise. Considering he's ran from problems that drove him to alcoholism and over two continents, you can't help but feel he has more than earned a break. His journey through the night is finally over.
• The last scene with Passos. He and Max part on good terms, with Passos leaving to start a family with Giovanna. Passos' last line (Life is worth living) flashes on the screen. Max seems to have taken it to heart in the ending.
  • Giovanna provides another heartwarming moment in that same scene. She hugs Max and thanks him profusely for saving her life, and when he apologizes for not being able to save Fabiana, she makes it clear that she doesn't blame him for it at all. Fabiana is another in a list of women Max has hoped to protect only to die in spite of it all, but rather than blame him for it (which, even if it wouldn't be right, would be understandable given how grief works) Giovanna reassures him that it wasn't his fault. He shrugs it off, but that reassurance and gratitude almost certainly meant the world to Max and might have had a hand in helping him finally move on with his life at the end of the game.
• The final run in with the fat ex-cop Anders Detling; if Max saw him the other times, he can have a final, nice conversation where it becomes apparent Max has at least one friend now:
  Anders: (sighs, chuckles) Well, chaos and guns. I'd mighta known you'd turn up.
  Max: (holsters gun) Sorry. You headin' home?
  Anders: Oh, I'm here to pick up my daughter. [...] Eh, what're you up to?
  Max: I dunno. Tryin' to make a difference? Givin' back?
  Anders: (laughs) Yeah, well that's whatcha call it.
  Max: Stay safe.
  Anders: Yeah.
  Narration: Judgment with a smile, you can't beat it.
• As one article published in 2012 detailed, one fan was motivated to quit drinking because of Max doing the same during the events of this game.

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