PAYDAY 3

Review

After ten years, the Payday gang is finally back with a long-awaited sequel that revitalizes the series. With a new base of operations set in New York, the crew formed by Dallas, Chains, Wolf and Hoxton (plus Joy and a new entry, Pearl) is ready to head back into the crime scene. The game features a story narrated through short animated cutscenes that are unlocked after completing each heist. I’m sure that most of the players won’t play Payday 3 for its story, especially considering it feels pointless and underwhelming, but I appreciate that the developers gave it some attention, at least. I also don’t understand why these cutscenes are initially locked, but the heists aren’t. You can play all the 8 heists immediately, in any order you like. It would have made more sense to have some heists locked at first, considering the last ones are more complex and thus not suited for new players. That said, they are all incredibly varied, ranging from the classic bank heist to the jewelry store robbery and even night club infiltration. Few more missions will be available via paid DLCs in the future, but the ones in the base game are already enough and offer a really fun experience.

Most of the heists have two ways to be completed: full stealth, meaning going in and out the building trying not to be noticed or putting your mask on and going in guns blazing, triggering alarms and shooting at cops and guards. I actually prefer stealth, because it requires great cooperation between each member of the team and you also get bonuses for doing it successfully. The level design is good enough and allows you to enter a building through different ways. Similarly to the latest HITMAN, the game also gives you multiple hints on what to do, for example how to distract a guard, where to find a keycard or if you need a password to open the vault’s door. Most of these optional tasks are linked to challenges that reward you with bonus experience. One thing that I didn’t like about stealth is that sometimes it feels limited; for example, you can’t jump over a window without wearing your mask first, which automatically draws your weapon too and makes you more visible in case you want to go back and try a different path. It doesn’t make sense that jump is not available for an unmasked stealth approach, but only for a run and gun situation.

If you are spotted by a civilian, you can make him lie on the ground and tie him up, but there are also many surveillance cameras and guards that you need to take care of if you want to stay undetected. If you are spotted and the alarm goes off, you won’t have much time left to unlock the vault and steal the money. Sometimes your objective will also change because you have been detected. This will turn the game into a real first-person shooter, with police reinforcements spawning every now and then, though you can trade hostages to buy more time for the heist and even use them as a shield. As time passes, the police will become more aggressive and special operators will continuously spawn, turning the stage into pure chaos. While the game can be quite difficult when you end up being outnumbered by the police, the AI is really terrible. Many times I have seen cops staying crouched behind a door, staring at the wall and waiting for me to shoot them in the head. Other times they just run in front of me with really slow reaction times. It happened too often to be acceptable behavior, and it became even worse when I played alone and the other members of my team were bots. They were completely lifeless, unable to assist me during the stealth moments. They couldn’t even take the money bags, so I had to manually throw them on their back each time and then take them back to the extraction point. For a heist game this is really disappointing to see and I was expecting more helpful behavior (at least they can still shoot). This is also why I recommend playing the game only with other players, better if friends. I have seen players leaving the team because there wasn’t a fourth player and they didn’t want to play with a bot. That’s how bad it is. Fortunately, the gunplay is really good and you can further customize your weapons with different attachments. You can also customize your characters by purchasing a great variety of masks and outfits with different styles and color options.

One thing that didn’t convince me is the progression system. The rewards for completing a heist are based on the number of challenges you have completed (like opening all safes or being completely silent). Leveling up is important because you start with three skills and you need to unlock more and customize your playstyle, but the only way to do it is by checking the challenges list and trying to complete them. This will inevitably limit your freedom, especially at the beginning. I think that challenges should be more a thing for highly-skilled players or used to enhance replayability, but in this case, they are fundamental for leveling up.

Compared to Payday 2, there are certainly many gameplay additions and quality of life features (some I mentioned above), so I have no doubt that with some updates and fixes it will become even better in the future. The game also supports cross-play, so there should be a good number of players playing at any time. Unfortunately, you are forced to create a Nebula account in order to play and there are still some matchmaking issues, so you need to search multiple times for a game before getting teamed up. The performance on PC is surprisingly good though; I didn’t experience any bug or frame drops and I appreciate the developers’ choice of removing Denuvo DRM a few days before the release.

While still a bit rough around the edges, Payday 3 is based on a solid foundation. Thanks to all the quality of life additions, improved gunplay and better stealth options, the game has a really bright future ahead, but only if (and that’s a big “if”) it will constantly receive updates and content. Despite few server issues, fans of the series will still love it and newcomers will enjoy it too thanks to a complete tutorial mode. To this date, Payday is the only valid multiplayer heist game available and I’m sure it hasn’t reached its full potential yet.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

PAYDAY 3 Steam Store Page