There are just some games that, no matter how flawed they may be, remain beloved and boast an engaged community. For those into heists and the high life of crime, Payday 2 from Starbeeze Studios wasn’t perfect, but it definitely provided a fun, engaging time for partners-in-crime to get up to no good and enjoy themselves. Naturally, that’s the hope for sequel, Payday 3, but that has not come to pass.
In fact, it seems like Payday 3 is a dead game. It may be hyperbolic to make such a statement, but if you look at the numbers, it’s clear that almost no one is playing this game. Furthermore, its price was recently cut in half, and it went on sale for the low price of just US$12. Price cuts of this magnitude simply do not happen to titles that are successful and have high player counts.
I originally wanted to assess Payday 3 as part of a review because while Payday 2 had its flaws, it was still a great game, and comparing it to the disaster that is Payday 3 would have been an enjoyable endeavour.
However, a few hours into stepping into the world of heists once more, it was abundantly clear that there was a stark disparity between the game’s quality and performance that made it hard for a clear comparison. Payday 3 isn’t a bad game. It’s not groundbreaking, as it plays like Payday 2 in a new engine. Plus, the changes to the formula, such as armour, lockpicking and overkill weapons, were interesting if not objective improvements.
Yet, despite the game being a serviceable title, its performance was abysmal. It isn’t much of a mystery why the game suffered from a tragically flawed launch and a subsequent content drought. This also happened to Apex Legends, where the developers abandoned the game almost immediately after releasing it, effectively killing what was a solid title at its core. The battle royale hero shooter was able to bounce back from this, and while it’s not impossible for Payday 3 to do the same, it’s certainly unlikely.
This is a game specifically designed to have new material added on later, and one of the negatives to this business model is the launch content can get stale really quickly. This is significantly worse when the launch content is the only significant content players have for months.
Couple the drought with some genuinely terrible server and UI issues, like being unable to join any lobbies on launch or taking over a year to add an “unready” button, and it is clear to see why this game isn’t favoured amongst Payday fans.
This then begs the question, does Payday 3 deserve irrelevancy? While it’s true that the game itself isn’t responsible for the mismanagement, at the same time, it’s also not the responsibility of players to continue playing games that bore them.
When it comes to games, especially ones with live service models, they must keep players consistently engaged, which Payday 3 didn’t obviously do. Over the last year, several major updates have been released, but they were all months apart. Looking at the current state of the game, the amount of content added isn’t all that substantial, especially compared to Payday 2.
It’s hard for players to want to move on to the next title in a series they love when the game has plenty of content with minor drawbacks. As previously mentioned, most of the changes made to the core gameplay were interesting, if not objectively better. Still, for many players, that doesn’t matter if there are more things to do in the previous game, and things ran much better.
With such a millstone around its neck, it’s not hard to see how the future of Payday 3 is murky at best. However, this could be good for the industry overall. For the most extended time, publishers have forced developers to release unfinished games with the caveat that they will be fixed with later updates. But with Payday 3 performing as poorly as it has, it may start demonstrating to publishers that ties to a strong franchise aren’t enough to carry a title, and that everyone deserves more.
