Payday 2 has been one of the longest-running live service games there is, maintaining huge player counts and constant updates since I was a young teenager. Needless to say, Payday 3’s release was a highly anticipated event for fans of the franchise, promising a next-generation update to a beloved gameplay experience and a new title that could potentially see years of updates. Unfortunately, Payday 3’s launch was anything but smooth, and the supposed magnum opus to this trilogy may have been better served with some more time in development.
A huge problem currently setting Payday 3 back is its rampant server issues.
While trying to play Payday 3 with my friends, I managed to get in a good handful of games before being struck with disconnects that cut our experience short. After finishing the heist Gold and Sharke for the first time, the game put my party in a sort of feedback loop, where the game would continuously try to (apparently) queue us back into the same mission, only to be met with an error that disbanded the group. Inviting anyone back to the party repeated the process until everyone was forced to close the game.
After this, we tried to head back into the mission for a second try at the $800,000 max take that we missed out on the first time. If there’s something Payday 3 does well, it tempts you to replay missions with the promise of huge rewards if you can just last longer or move faster than you did in your last run. This time, we thought it would go smoother if we queued as a public match instead of filling our party with bots.
After a long queue time that seemed to be going nowhere, we decided it would be best to just go at it privately. It’s better to get into the game now than wait, right? Unfortunately, trying to queue up a friends-only game put us into a similarly long queue time. After about ten minutes of waiting, we realized the servers were reported as being down and decided to take a break from heisting.
This is not a new problem for Payday 3, even on its first day of launch. When you first open the game, you will be required to make an account on a third-party website in order to access the game at all. Reportedly, for the longest time, players were unable to actually register their accounts. Therefore, being gatekept out of their freshly purchased game by a registration process that seems arbitrary at best.
The reason for this third-party account is so that Payday 3 can have cross-play and cross-progression from the start, allowing players to match with and share their progress across all of the platforms Payday 3 is available. While perhaps not the best-implemented feature, having the cross-compatibility this early into the game’s launch is certainly a nice feature, a feature that some games might take months or even years to implement if they do at all.
These server issues are a major issue for Payday 3, as currently, there is no option for offline play. The always-online requirement means that you are completely at the whim of the server status, which seems to be tenuous at best. After waiting about five hours for a fix just to get screenshots of the missions, I had already completed and forgot to record. I decided to just use what I had as far as menu screenshots and hop into the tutorial to show you some “gameplay.”
If I believed the team couldn’t fix this issue, I’d label Payday 3 as unplayable. I’m sure they’ll get around to it eventually, but wow, what a first impression—especially since this problem could have easily been fixed with an option to play offline, which Payday 2 has.
When I was able to get into the game, I was greeted with eight playable heists. While this, without a doubt, is a pathetically small amount compared to the heists currently available in Payday 2, it’s hard to hold a candle up to a game with ten years of constant updates. The eight heists available in Payday 3 are certainly memorable as well, with each one playing differently and having their own unique and highly detailed maps to explore.
Even if you choose the stealthy approach in Payday 3, your matches will likely escalate into massive firefights with the police. During these intense firefights, there are objectives you must complete to secure your payday. Waves of cops will come at you, which will vary in difficulty both in how many cops are present, how strong they are, and the strategy they choose to approach your crew.
This is Payday’s tried and true gameplay loop, and it’s only been improved by new enemy types and interactions. The variety of foes and strategies you’re capable of deploying to defeat them certainly improves the pace of combat by leaps and bounds. One of my personal favorite things to do is to blow up the grenades on a “Nader’s” belt. New rampage weapons serve as a sort of killstreak bonus, but I found the grenade launcher you start with to be a little useless and even detrimental to your success in tight corners.
Being able to trade hostages to get supplies or delay police invasions is one mechanic I particularly enjoyed, and one that I’m not sure if I remember being in Payday 2. It’s been a while since I’ve played the previous title. Suffice to say, though, I was always the one on the team gathering and corraling hostages to buy us precious seconds to breach the vault or recover some health after a brutal firefight.
If the AI has improved from Payday 2, I don’t really see it. I’ve had plenty of moments where cops walk past me, drop from ceilings with their back turns, or just don’t fire at me when we’re alone in a hallway. But all in all, I’d say the tension of fights feels higher than in the last game. Teammates certainly aren’t equipped with the best AI either, as they can’t carry bags or complete any objectives and rarely deploy their consumables at a good time. They’re fast to revive you, though.
Beyond the broken servers, the game certainly needs some quality-of-life improvements. The game lacks any server browsers or quick-play buttons, which means every match you make is going to be a new heist from start to finish. And if someone leaves in the middle of your session, they likely won’t be getting replaced. Certain game-design decisions, such as your overkill weapons spawning in the middle of the road surrounded by cops, or the idea that you would have to bring in your vault-busting drill after the cops have already been alerted, either frustrates or simply confuses me.
The Final Word
Beyond the new enemy types, fancy new graphics, and a handful of well-designed levels, I’d say it’s business for usual for the Payday series. With improvements over the second game and the promise of continued dev support for what could be years, I’d definitely say it’s worth upgrading to the new title if you’re a big fan of the second. However, these promises are blindsided by serious server issues and simple quality-of-life problems that need to be addressed first, so I suggest you keep Payday 2 installed for the time being. If you aren’t a die-hard Payday fan and you’re looking into an entry into the series, I’d give this one a pass and hit up Payday 2 until these problems are addressed.
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Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Payday 3 is available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.