Rockstar Newswire

Update: The event has ended, but Triple XP is live all weekend long for all platforms worldwide. The Day of the Dead Skull should be unlocked for all members of Founder Crews right now. If you are a member of a Founder Crew and do not see this in your Loadouts please email us at mouthoff@rockstargames.com with the link to your Crew’s profile. We're still working on getting everyone who joined the Social Club Event Playlist the Demonic Skull. You should all receive them by tomorrow morning. Look for more skull mask unlock opportunities in the future.

Join us Friday October 26th from 4-7pm ET / 9pm-midnight BST, for a special Halloween edition of the Social Club Multiplayer Events series where you can unlock a freaky all-new Demonic Skull head item for Max Payne 3 Multiplayer in keeping with the spirit of the season. We'll be playing on Xbox LIVE; however, players across all three platforms will be able to join their respective Social Club Multiplayer Event Playlists in-game to unlock the Demonic Skull as seen above. TRIPLE XP will also be live on all three platforms, right through the weekend.

In addition to the Demonic Skull, we're also unlocking the Day of the Dead Skull as a special bonus exclusive to all members of our veterano Founder Crews. If you have a Founder Crew as your Active Crew, or you have played at least one full game in the 26th October Social Club Playlist, check out the Head Items section of your Multiplayer Loadouts after 4pm to access the Skulls (you may need to exit to the main menu of Max Payne 3 and then return to Multiplayer in order to see them). Skulls do not award any bonus abilities, but they do look awesome!

We'll have four of our most lethal dev players tearing it up with you across various game modes, double live stream, Rockstar-hosted chat and a sweepstakes to win Max Payne 3 Prize Packs over at the Social Club Multiplayer Events page, plus a bonus stream over on the Rockstar Twitch channel. At some point during the event, our four Rockstar devs will Crew up to take on challengers - so look out for that in the chat and ready your Crew to try and take them on, just like Broken Whiskey Bottles, Shinobi, Elite Gamer Crew, Ice Cold Assassins and The VII7s have done recently. Be sure to check back in to the Multiplayer Events Page to see if you made the top 200 on the Event Leaderboards.

OFFICIAL ROCKSTAR IDs
Participating official in-game Rockstar names will be:

• MaxPayneDev1
• MaxPayneDev2
• MaxPayneDev3
• MaxPayneDev4

SWEEPSTAKES
Enter to win a Max Payne 3 prize pack on the events page, including a Max Payne 3 t-shirt, bullet keychain and stickers. Five winners will be randomly selected. Official rules are available in several languages.

COUNTDOWN
If you're unsure of when the event will begin in your time zone, have a look at the countdown on the Social Club multiplayer events page.

HOW TO FIND US
When the event starts up on Friday, enter Max Payne 3 multiplayer and select the Social Club Multiplayer Event playlist. We'll play a mix of Soft Lock and Free Aim, so look for the names listed above. Please note that the playlist will be visible on all platforms, but on this occasion our devs will only be playing on Xbox LIVE.

FUTURE PLAYSESSIONS
If you want more time to play our games with us, your best bet is to follow us at our official Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Steam pages so you can get the word when we're going online for some impromptu multiplayer...

Update: This is now available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 worldwide.

In preparation for next week's release of the Hostage Negotiation Pack, a new automatic title update is now available for Max Payne 3 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. This update also addresses some technical issues including the following:

• General improvements to multiplayer, improving overall stability and matchmaking efficiency
• Added the option to copy one of your Loadouts into an empty custom slot
• Fixed an issue where wins and losses were reported incorrectly on leaderboards
• Fixed an issue where explosive kills were not working as intended in Arcade Mode
• Fixed an issue where newly created Crews and Emblems would not always appear in-game
• Fixed an issue where dual wielding the PT92 and .38 revolver and firing until the ammunition runs out could cause the weapons to jam

If you have any problems downloading this title update or need to report other technical issues, please contact our tech support team through any of the following means:

Since the launch of Max Payne 3 we've been sharing multiplayer strategies and Loadouts favored by some of the best players in our development studios as part of the game tips series here on the Newswire. For this week's edition, we've reached out to another set of elite soldiers: the players residing near the top of the individual leaderboards at Rockstar Social Club. Here's a look at what a few of these leaderboard legends had to share with us...

abrokian, member of Pro and Deadly Crew, 3rd on overall PC leaderboards

This prolific Crew teamed together and sent over a rather large document filled with game tips, our favorite of which is this breakdown of Bursts detailing when to use them for maximum effectiveness.

Slippery Character is best used when you’re using a medium or heavy Loadout and need the extra endurance to move quickly and get out of the line of fire.

Deadly Force increases the damage of whichever weapon you are carrying, and is great in one-on-one situations where you want to take out an enemy before they kill you. It can be the deciding factor in settling Feuds

Big Dog is extremely useful in crisis situations, where you and your teammates are in need of emergency treatment, and it can also act as a layer of armor if you activate it just before entering hostile territory.

Intuition is best used when the enemy is smaller in numbers, like towards the end of a round of ‘Last Man Standing’ or ‘Survivor’. Try to resist using it at the beginning of the round, and save it for when knowledge of the enemies’ positions is invaluable.

Paranoia should be deployed mid-round when the enemies have dispersed. In ‘Takedown’, it can disorientate the opposition and make them reluctant to open fire for fear of betraying the friendly target.

Sneaky makes you appear friendly to an enemy, so therefore you should act like one and only open fire if you are sure of completing the kill. Try circumventing objective locations and cut-off enemy defenses from where they least expect.

Fresh Blood can be a game changer – use it to turn a difficult situation to your team’s favor, powering your respawns and spending more time on the battlefield.

Weapon Dealer is for those times when you’re attacking from the front and can make the best use of unlimited ammo; just bear in mind the effect doesn’t apply to missile-based weapons.

Burst Bubble can hamper the other team’s progress when they’re trying to complete a Gang Wars objective by reducing their ability to use Bursts of their own.

Weapon Double Dealer has two important uses: limit the opposition to one clip of ammunition when they are attacking from long range and, when they are gathered together in a confined space, unleash level three and pick up multiple kills from dropped grenades.

Hit the jump below for tips from KLC_DUKES, leader of Underworld Mob Kings Crew...

Respect to YouTube user laurigun1, an apparent longtime fan and dedicated collector of our titles, for putting together this pretty comprehensive trip down memory lane compiling a video tour of our signature animated Rockstar intros that have appeared at the start of our games since the late 90s.

Including intros that even we haven't looked at in a while from our rarer titles like Thrasher: Skate and Destroy and Surfing H3O - as well as those that you'll recognize as having greeted you upon loading up each Grand Theft Auto title, it's a nice little nostalgic compendium. Bear in mind that the video is over a year old, which is why you won't see ones from L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3 in there.

Enjoy, and let us know in the comments which you remember most fondly...

Related:
Rockstar Games Bonus Beats video montage

Less than one week after duking it out in the São Paulo favelas and Hoboken rooftops of Max Payne 3, our live-streaming Social Club Multiplayer Events series is heading back to Liberty City for a Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition session on both PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE.

We'll kick it off on Thursday, September 27 at 11am EST/4pm BST in GTAIV and will move on to both Episodes from Liberty City, giving everyone a chance to take part regardless of which copy of the game they own. To keep updated on which game modes our squad of Rockstar Games staff players are in, simply follow the live chat over at the Social Club Multiplayer Events page, where we'll also have the customary double live-stream of all the action along with a sweepstakes to win one of five GTAIV prize packs that include the Liberty City license plate, t-shirt and stickers.

Here are the dev accounts that will be taking part:

• PlayRockstar (PSN)
• PlayRockstar11 (PSN)
• GwRockstar2 (Xbox LIVE)
• GwRockstar3 (Xbox LIVE & streamed on our Twitch TV channel)

Only add one PlayStation Network ID/Gamertag to your friends list to play. We will clear each account's friend list at the start of the event and accept as many invites as we can. Please bear in mind that spamming the chat room asking for a game invite is a good way to not receive one.

FINDING US IN-GAME
Where's Rockstar? Pay attention to the live chat on the Social Club Multiplayer Events page. We'll announce where we're at in there. We'll begin in Grand Theft Auto IV in GTA Race, and later progress to the two episodes. Use the in-game cellphone to select the mode we're playing during the event.

NEED A PARTNER?
For team-based modes such as Team Deathmatch, gather your friends using Party Mode. You can also hit up the chat during the event or just post your PSN ID/Gamertag in the Comments section below.

ABOUT PARTY MODE
Party Mode is an easy way to get your group together and find matches.  Here are the three quick and easy steps to get you up and running:

1. Save your current game. To get started, fire up the in-game mobile phone by pressing "Up" on the d-pad. Select Multiplayer > Party Mode > Yes.
2. Next, open up your phone again and select the Friends option to invite at least one person into your Party Mode game.
3. Once your team is ready to roll, open up the in-game phone again and select Games > GTA Race.

 
Take on all comers and successfully plant bombs in Gang Wars to earn this week's Pyromaniac Payne Threshold.

There's no need to go into XP withdrawal just because our Triple XP weekend has come to an end. This week's all-new set of Payne Thresholds are the key to racking up large amounts of Max Payne 3 experience while having a good ol' time seeing if you have what it takes to rise to these three new challenges. This particular set will reward those who are masters of stealth as well as anybody with a healthy appetite for destruction. 

As our fall calendar continues touring treacherous destinations from Blackwater to Bohan to Brazil, we thank all of those who joined us for our recent wild western stop in the Red Dead Redemption Social Club Multiplayer Event held on Friday September 13th across both PSN and Xbox LIVE. With our resident RedDeadDevs 3 to 6 playing across all modes in the Game of the Year Edition (that is all the original modes plus all DLC modes as well), along with a double live-stream on the Rockstar Social Club and a third live stream on our Twitch TV channel, there was frontier bloodshed near and far.

In the event sweepstakes, congrats to prize winners GTAIV_King, DoE-BLaCK-413, Thunder_Passion, Greatn3ss87 and RestNP1eces86, each receiving a t-shirt, deck of Red Dead playing cards and stickers.

We started things off in Free Roam, and after inviting Social Club members who had posted their PSN IDs in the live chat, RedDeadDev6 wasted no time in claiming The Armadillo Saloon and lay in wait with the Cattleman Revolver. However, Instanbul Turk (PSN) burst in to beat our dev player down and claim the land, kick-starting an intense contest which saw the saloon changing hands multiple times before brieffrogs34283 staked the final claim. Dev6's entire session was recorded by Social Club Multiplayer Event stalwart ShenmueSaga and can be viewed below so you can re-live the action.

Hit the jump for more video, screens and a full list of participants from the day.

 
The Rooftop of the Moderno - with its open areas and numerous elevated platforms - is a great place to get to work on this week's Dive Bomber Payne Threshold.

Whether you're working towards a new weapon unlock or have the next Legend status in your sights, this week's Payne Thresholds challenges are now live in Max Payne 3 to help you gain massive XP rewards for covering ground, guarding bomb sites and spectacular Shootdodge™ kills. As with previous challenges, XP bonuses are unlocked at Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers, with custom Titles up for grabs should you pull off the Platinum score. You can keep track of your best scores and compare them against Friends, Crew members and the rest of the world at the Rockstar Social Club. Here's a quick rundown of this week's challenges, which expire at midnight on September 23rd:

Stay tuned for more next week. Let us know how you fare with them and feel free to share any strategies or specific Loadouts that help you reach the coveted Platinum threshold in the comments section...