An improvement over previous Payday games in most aspects, but it wouldn't be an Overkill game without some baffling missteps. That the game exists in a "real engine" should presumably receive partial credit for obvious improvements to moving and shooting, but the developers themselves deserve the rest (obviously): They have clearly been paying attention to how missions are played and received during Payday 2's ten-year lifespan and used that knowledge to craft 8 heists that are - any way you slice them - more interesting than Payday 2's base game offerings. They're further enhanced by changes to stealth that make it feel like a worthwhile approach in its own right instead of a shortcut you take to level up without playing the game. All of this forms a solid base for future growth, and it does need some future growth: Overkill have been a bit too aggressive when it comes to trimming features from their last game and seem to have thrown some important QOL features out with the bathwater.

Pre-game lobby chat is non-existent, which can be pretty important for coordinating strategies and loadouts. Similarly important for team play are ammo indicators for your teammates - I don't even need exact numbers (Deep Rock has it figured out), but I'd like to drop an ammo bag at the right time without relying on my teammates to ask. These are the most obvious ones, but problems like this start to pop up everywhere as you start looking for information you would have if you fired up Payday 2 right now. I say "right now" because they've made these mistakes before: Payday 2 had serious information issues at launch, especially when it came to knowing how much a skill increases a value and for what duration. Making these numbers visible in Payday 3 is a complete layup when it comes to balancing development effort with player appreciation, given that any long-time PD2 player can probably name 2 or 3 major HUD mods (even if they didn't use them!) dedicated to slathering the screen in even more hideous timers.

It needs work, but it's a decent game. I'll admit that I came into this one fully expecting to love it so it should be little surprise that I do, but I think that the most dated parts of Payday 2 (wonky gameplay systems and some uninspired mission design) have seen the greatest glow-up and I think the differences will be obvious and greatly appreciated by the vast majority of people who are coming from the old games.

I've played Payday for 10 years. I bought Payday 2 in 2013 and loved it, followed the secret, finished it myself, did every heist on DSOD, I've done everything you can do in Payday 2. This was meant to be the follow up that would blow my mind. I was ready on release date to spend hours playing this with my buddies.

We got two heists in, the servers have been down for almost an entire day now. Starbreeze starkly defended the always online nature of the game, and now it makes them look like clowns. You can't even play the game solo, you have to matchmake for a game with bots. You also need a 3rd party nebula account to even play the game.

The UI is terrible. The menus feel like they were made for controllers with no account for PC. There's no lobbies or lobby browser (e.g. CrimeNet), you get booted to the main menu after every heist, no way to keep playing with the crew you were just with. All the weapons are just in a list clumped together, no filter of weapon type or primary/secondary. Weapon stats are shown in bars instead of numbers. Customization has been completely stunted as well as build variety. Most guns feel the same, abandoning the myriad of playstyles and builds available in Payday 2.

Melee bash does almost nothing, terrible damage and not even a stagger. There are no melee weapons, no lasers, no safe house to go to. The ping system is extremely bad, you are forced to use the ping button to shout at civs or mark guards and special units, instead of just using the interact button. Instead of a normal EXP system, you're forced to do challenges to level up. The skills force you to play around three boring buffs, most of the skills are built around this, and many skills are overall completely useless.

I wanted to love this game, but so much of it is super off-putting, feeling like it was released way too early. Stack on the fact the game also been mostly unplayable since release. I hope they can make this better, but for now I'm extremely disappointed.

literally the same fucking game with the same animations and a lot of trackers bullshit you have to opt out of and you have to register to a website just to play the damn game, also don't forget the fact that main menu is basically a glorified website that fucks up frequently (spamming heist button at launch day, everyone?)

but it's all okay, because overkill has the secret crabby patty formula that valve's been milking for years with team fortress 2, that is pushing out paid content to furries while not updating their ancient gameplay and engine, works like charm

Overkill has been hyping this game for a while now: it took them 10 years to finally decide to put Payday 2 to rest... Was the wait worth it?

Let's start by saying Payday 3 is NOT a finished game. With an extremely selective arsenal and number of missions, Payday 3 lacks lots of content, which is something Payday 2 was praised for instead. I'm sure this will be fixed in the future, but if you consider the game is 40 euros as of now... It's not worth it.

Story-wise, Payday 3 goes back to the more grounded roots of the first Payday game, with a huge shift from the more playful color palettes of Payday 2 to make space for a grittier experience. So far it's limited to only 8 heists with two cutscenes dividing them each time. It makes it easier to follow the main story compared to the way you did that in Payday 2, but at the same time the lack of Crime.NET kills the replay ability for all the missions.

Optimization is also a huge flaw, as the matchmaking is just overcomplicated for no reason, getting into a solo mission requires too much work, and performance on older hardware can be unpleasant even at lower settings.

The thing that really shines about Payday 3 is its gameplay. The new movement system makes it much more appealing than the older Payday games, making it more engaging and adding more to the overall skill ceiling, making it a real challenge to know how to properly play with everything. The enemies are just as engaging to fight as they were in Payday 2, perhaps the similarities could be another thing to criticise though, as there hasn't been any improvement in that aspect.

Overall, Payday 3 is a game I'll play in the future to make sure to keep my review up to date as I believe it has the potential to be the best Payday option one day. For now, if you're thinking about buying it, buy Payday 2 instead.

Payday 3 at launch is like walking into a burger restaurant and instead of asking for the usual burger that they have improved & refined for years known as Payday 2, I wanna try the new burger that they just put on their menu recently which is Payday 3.

The chefs are getting it ready for me and after taking my first bite out of it. I’m stunned at how good it is & find it very delicious even if I’m sure that some sauces are missing known as smaller, but appropriate features from Payday 2.

Still, it doesn’t distract me enough from the fact that the new burger left me wanting to eat more of it. However, the waiter known as the server just grabs the new burger from my hands and throws it away, leaving me completely shocked and getting a bit mad. Now imagine this scenario but happening constantly and that is Payday 3 in a nutshell for me.

A very good game that the chefs known as the game devs should be proud of it, but they seriously need to fucking sort out their waiters known as the servers, and let me fully finish their damn new burger that I enjoy when the waiter isn’t being an asshole

There's no denying that the launch for the game is rough. REALLY rough, and the reception for this game could have been better if it wasn't online only. That being said, if you are able to find a game, then you do have yourself a really damn good game. I enjoyed the gameplay and the missions.

I have a couple of major gripes with the game though. I'm not really a big fan of the leveling system being tied to challenges. It was so much simpler in Payday 2 when you can just complete a heist and gain XP by how well you did in the heist. Also, again, the online only issue. Not really a smart move and I hope the devs can release an offline mode in the future. And considering how it's being received, I'd hope it's as soon as possible.

There's a ton of potential with this game, and I feel like if Starbreeze knows that. Here's hoping that this game might end up being better in the future if they listen to some of the feedback. That being said, I still enjoyed this one. Not as good as Payday 2, but there is always room for improvements. As of now, I say wait a bit, about a month or two before picking this one up. That or try it on Game Pass for free.

Ok lets get the obvious out of the way, I am choosing to disregard the Server issues in this as if I was to include it, it would be a 1 and a half star for sure.

Whent he game is working, this is a super immersive experience, Ive since completed all the heists on Normal, and some on Overkill maskless, cheeky little flex there ;)

I have thoroughly enjoyed my Solo experience and most recently loved playing coop with my viewers, I found myself disliking the skill system a bit, seems a bit ehh but it can be improved upon.

Gun play is massivly improved, guns feel weighty and responsive as opposed to PD2s arcady peashooters. Enemied dont feel like sponges either, I also appreciate the attachments and gun customisation.

I havent dabbled with the masks and colour cimbinations yet, but there seems to be more Novelty masks instead of having blank canvases, hopefully this changes, need more unique ones that can be easily customised without being overhwelming eg putting a paint job on the Abe Lincoln one, too many lines etc looks like a mess.

Stealth is goated.

and some cons, Lack of variety in challenges, would have liked to see a challenge for maskless wins, but again updates will work that I hope.

Payday 3 is ALMOST everything I could’ve wanted from a sequel to Payday 2. It’s got more variety in gameplay, especially stealth. I remember reading that a developer said that one of the biggest influences for PD3’s stealth was Hitman, and that could not be more clear when you actually play the game. I cannot explain the feelings I had when I successfully completed stealth contracts almost entirely maskless, but GOD the stealth in this game is really fuckin good. In addition, the game has better graphics, thanks to the move from a literal ps2 racing game engine to Unreal 4, as well as a banger soundtrack by Gustavo Coutinho. Overall, this was just a really fun time - even when playing solo - and I am so glad I got to play this game in early access. That being said, the launch has proven for me that, unfortunately, I just cannot recommend this game in its current state.

The always-online aspect of Payday 3 is criminal (haha get it?), and it has caused so many issues since launch that it is almost impossible to get into a lobby, even when playing solo. You have to connect to the Payday 3 servers even when you are playing in a solo private match. I really hope Starbreeze reconsiders the jump to always-online soon and implement some kind of offline mode, because the game is literally unplayable right now. I worry that this game might suffer the same fate as Battlefront II, where a controversy at launch permanently ruins the game’s reputation even after the issues what caused the controversies in the first place are resolved. This game is genuinely brilliant and it is such a shame to see it be dragged through the dirt by server issue after server issue.

Edit (13/10/23): Three weeks after release, the game still isn’t patched, no communication from Starbreeze on anything and every dev stream consists of Almir regurgitating “uhhhh we have not confirmed [blank]”. Either fix your shit or at least have the dignity to be transparent to your playerbase, who have been so loyal to stick by this broken game for this long.

Payday 2 is a game I love dearly, with close to 200hrs played. Payday 3 is currently a game I can see becoming one that I feel the same way about, but as it is in 2023, no.

The short version, Payday 3 is an improvement to most systems. However a combination of a few missteps in changing the perk/levelling systems, and a lack of content overall. Makes Payday 3 a classic "its okay now, but I can see it being great later".

Extended Thoughts

Praise where its due
The decision to make difficulty increase be achieved via:
- Raising objective requirements (like requiring more loot needing to be stolen before the group can escape)
- Adding extra mission modifiers (like indestructible cameras, or guards leaders that will get paged constantly)
- Making enemy ai more aggressive
Opposed to raising the health/dmg output of enemies, is a smart, and well appreciated move, that will be better for game health in the long run. Avoiding the power creep issues of Payday 2 that made the game impenetrable for newer players, or even players that haven't heisted in a year.

This approach to difficult, in combination with a revamped stealth system that feels like a solid PS1 era stealth-game (opposed to Payday 2, which felt like an exploit that could break at any second). Results in Payday 3 being an incredible foundation to build upon.

However, as of launch, Payday 3 ONLY feels like an incredible foundation.

I know it would be unfair to compare the content of launch P3 with current P2, but even comparing to launch P2 makes P3 feel like an early access release opposed to a 1.0.

P2 launched with 11 heists, 6x 1 day heists, 2x 2 day heists, and 3x 3 day heists (so a total of 19 "missions"). Whereas Pday3 launched with 8x 1 day heists, effectively meaning launch P3 has less than half the missions of P2's launch.

The lack of mission content, paired with ludicrously slow progression to unlock the 16(?) guns with far less customisation, and the pile of perks that give minor improvements that don't really give a single sense of "making a build". Results in Payday 3 feeling lesser than the sum of its parts, whereas the less foundationally strong Payday 2 in having so much variety, felt far stronger.

I have put 17 hours in so far, I am level 35. While I think the idea to tie levels to challenges verses raw exp could be better, encouraging seeking harder challenges, opposed to grinding the same heist for exp to level up to then attempt the harder challenges.
The implementation of this being "do X mission above Y difficulty 60 times loud" and "do X mission above Y difficulty 60 times stealth" AND "unlock all attachments for X gun", which itself IS an exp grind still! Only WORSE because:

1. You undergo long stretches of no progress for overall level. And since gun exp is set, you will just pick the fastest mission complete to exp gain ratio, and repeat that single mission at nauseum.

2. You are actively disincentivised to do lower difficulty heists with newer players, because you get nothing for it. This would be actually good for Payday 2, where a higher level player would just be able to steamroll a low level heist with a more powerful build. But Payday 3 has less power creep, so the gap in what a level 1 and 100 player can do is more a matter of game sense and skill. So these players should be put together because it would actually help the community bring each other up.

If Payday 3 has a content cycle at least on-par with that of Payday 2, and undergoes similar perk and levelling system reworks once the community at large has really dug into the systems. I do ultimately think after a year to three, Payday 3 will be seen more favourably. Until then, I think Payday 3 is currently only for die hard fans of Payday, and people that will play though each heist once or twice via gamepass.