After almost 10 years of no activity, Max Payne is back and ready for another round of cinematic action and too many bullets to even count.

Rockstar Games announced today that Max Payne 3 is expected to launch on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms on May 15. The PC version will launch a bit later on May 29.

“Max Payne 3 brings powerful storytelling back to the action-shooter genre,” Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games, said. “Rockstar Studios are delivering a game that’s both incredibly cinematic and very, very intense to play.”

The game takes place after the events of Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and features the series trademark dark, cinematic approach to storytelling. Max Payne 3 sees the former New York detective living in São Paulo, Brazil where he works as protection for the wealthy Rodrigo Branco. Like in all good crime/thriller stories, Rodrigo’s wife is soon kidnapped sending Max into a conspiracy that flows through the entire city.

The game is also offering multiplayer for the first time in the series but promises to retain the series’ cinematic feel by offering fluid movement and gunplay. The multiplayer will build upon the fiction of the Max Payne universe and feature traditional and new multiplayer modes that focus on the themes of paranoia, betrayal and heroism.

To be honest, I was concerned with the direction that Rockstar was taking Max Payne 3, but all my fears have been laid to rest. The series is in good hands and hopefully we’ll see more stories told of the life of Max Payne. I would not, however, be against Remedy taking the reigns of the Max Payne franchise again. Too bad they are now knee deep in the excellent Alan Wake franchise, which really isn’t a bad thing.

The addition of multiplayer will also appeal to a larger group of players who might have ignored the first two games for being single-player only affairs. Increasing the exposure of this excellent game franchise and barring the memory of the awful movie should help cement Max Payne back into a central role for Rockstar and the gaming community as a whole.