10 Best Rockstar Games Protagonists - Ranked

10. Max Payne

Truth be told, Max Payne is a pretty fantastic character, but he's not a Rockstar original, and that's why he's at the bottom.

Rockstar Games has only made one Max Payne game (Max Payne 3), and that came way back in 2012. It jumped forward in time nine years to find a retired Max living in New Jersey with addictions to both alcohol and pain medication.

Max takes a job to be a private security contractor in South America, and finds himself trying to save his boss' kidnapped wife. It's a dark, sinister tale that twists along the way to continue the drudgery that is Max's life.

It's one of Rockstar's darkest stories and felt like an authentic continuation of Max's story. Payne is the most hard-boiled, grizzled, and downtrodden of all Rockstar protagonists, and that's what makes him so compelling. That said, the nice thing about the third game is that Max quite literally walks off into the sunset at the end.

It's the character arc that provides us, and him, with some semblance of peace after so many years of misery; a noir tale that served to say goodbye to one of gaming's most loved characters.