The gang is back and this time they’re in New York City pulling off the most daring heists. The setting change up from Washington DC from Payday 2 is supposed to be an “enormous living breathing world” that aims to add new layers to the gameplay experience. Dallas, Hoxton, Wolf, and Chains are on the returning cast roster and the story is picking up where it left off. Our favorite heisters are coming back from retirement.
Payday 3 sticks to the classic formula of being a four player co-op shooter. You create your ideal team loadout with your friends and you can bring various weapons and gadgets into the heist with you. You can play solo and with AI teammates if you’re really a solo player but I can’t speak to how that feels since the hour I played was in a full group.
You can approach each heist with various different paths. You can choose to go quietly and stealth around and try not to get caught through the entire mission, or you can go loud and just go guns blazing from the get-go. Starbreeze promises lots of different ways around accessing locked doors and stealthing through the various new tools added to Payday 3.
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In fact, there are now new heist phases: Search to go looking for you, Negotiation phase to give yourself more time, and Assault. The gameplay loop has you equipping your preferred loadouts, selecting new skills that you want to use, then entering the heist, assessing the map layout, initiating the heist however you want (stealth or loud), the getaway, then payout.
But of course, before you load into a heist, you have to perfect your gun loadout, along with the specific items and skills you want equipped. There are new skill trees for you to unlock different perks and bonuses. You have to level up to unlock some skills and clicking on a skill before entering a heist lets you “research” that particular skill and unlocks it for you once you’ve leveled. You can also equip your loadout with deployable items that will benefit your team like a Medkit, Ammo Bag, an Armor Bag, and a Zipline Bag (a new device that lets you link cash bags to a zipline to get it quickly to a new location.
I got to play two heists during the preview: Capital Bank and Surphase Art Gallery. Capital Bank was your pretty standard heist where you go in and try to grab all the cash you can while also reaching your goal of infiltrating the larger vault and getting a bigger cashout. Surphase Art Gallery, on the other hand, was an interesting twist on the heist system with the goal being to steal some of the displayed art in the museum, Mission Impossible style.
Capital Bank felt like a familiar return to the Payday 2 days. During the preview play period, I was teamed up with two devs and one other journalist. Dropping us into the game immediately was a bit overwhelming. For context, we were dropped into matches without playing the tutorial mode so I’m sure this won’t be as overwhelming to day one players but there are definitely way more elements to Payday 3 that can get to be a lot to remember – especially if you’re just going off what Payday 2 felt like. We attempted to try the quieter method of stealthing but because of the confusion of what the new first heist phase was, we ended up triggering security and just going guns blazing.
That was kind of the theme of the entire play session. Even though we did get a grasp of the new concepts and mechanics, the actual stealth play is extremely difficult and really punishing if you make the slightest mistake. I’m all for a challenge, but it was unfortunate that we didn’t really get to experience a proper stealth playthrough during my hour of hands-on time. The few times we got the furthest in stealth gameplay, it was really cool to find different keycards through pickpocketing guards or unlocking rooms to access safes that have documents containing info on where security breaches would be the safest.
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The concepts of stealthing in this heist game that’s all about high-octane action are really cool, but I worry that most people won’t really experience that very much, since most people are used to just going guns blazing from the jump. Most players won’thave the patience to move really slowly and deliberately to set up a stealth intro when it feels like you’ll just have to eventually go loud once the heist really swings into gear because a single mistake from anyone will guarantee an immediate alert.
Speaking of going loud, the Capital Bank heist has you throwing thermite to breach the vault walls while fighting off waves of law enforcement who get increasingly beefier as time goes on. You start with fighting standard cops, then SWAT-like members who have heavier armor and riot shields, and then you’ll battle a terrifying division of special ops returning from Payday 2 called the Cloakers. These guys got an upgrade in Payday 3 and they can mask themselves and go invisible and reappear wielding blades that can knock you on your ass with one hit.
Once you do make your way into the vault, you actually have to take even more time to make sure you deactivate the security ink pods that will explode if you try to steal the cash under it without successfully deactivating them, rendering the money useless and uncollectible. Once your team has all the cash loaded up in their bags, you can make your way out to the streets and start your escape.
The art gallery heist, meanwhile, was a lot of fun since it was a new environment and gave off an Ocean’s 11 vibe. Stealthing here was pretty difficult, too, since this map requires you to climb around if you want to find a quiet way into the art museum. The gameplay loop was similar to Capital Bank, but instead of cash you steal paintings or small statues and you have to verify which piece of art is the one you’re looking for.
For instance, one of the objectives was to validate the real painting from fake copies by getting a blue light tool to check for blood that was only on the real paintings. Once validated, you cut through the glass on the displays like a true art thief and make away with the treasure. I enjoyed the gameplay and environment way more in the art gallery and the actual museum has a few levels and exhibits you have to navigate through. Hilariously, you’ll actually end up using the “you are here” maps in the levels a lot to figure out where to go, as if you’re actually visiting a real museum.
Payday 3 was developed on Unreal Engine 4 which is a swap from Payday 2’s Diesel Engine. While there is definitely a visual upgrade from Payday 2, Payday 3’s graphics weren’t so incredible that I was blown away by this modern update to the series. Graphically, Payday 3 looked like Payday 2 but with more shading and lighting upgrades. But Payday 3 being built off Unreal 4 lets them do more consistent updates and have more support so I’m not too concerned with how Payday 3 looks visually. I was just surprised to see there wasn’t a real visually upgraded feel to the latest entry.
Payday 3 gives you way more time with mask off gameplay as opposed to Payday 2 where you just walk into the targeted building and strike into action. With Payday 3, you’re able to look around for safety faults, maybe a take a lap around the block to see what’s up and what some potential escape routes can be, and also examine the building from both the inside and outside to assess what your options are to either sneak or bust into the high security rooms.
The mask off gameplay is a bit restricted to what you can do movement-wise, however. For example, it took me a few matches to understand that you need your mask on to be able to climb things around the environment. I understand why that’s a mechanic tied to the mask, since you are most likely trying to climb and break into a locked building, but it was a bit frustrating and not entirely clear. Having to put the mask on for basic movements like climbing also puts you at risk of getting noticed before the heist even gets started so it forces you to really calculate the best moments to utilize the mask and stay alert.
The NPCs are more dynamic as well and you can destroy more things in the environment. There are now new heist phases: Search to go looking for you, Assault (when you’re initiating the heist), and a new negotiation phase that lets you coordinate a plan to give yourself more time in the heist.
When things inevitably go sideways, negotiation is by far the most interesting part of Payday 3. You’re able to actually negotiate with the police using your hostages trapped in that building with you. So you have to manage the hostages while also raiding the bank or museum you’re stealing from. You can use hostages as body shields since the security won’t shoot you if you’re holding an innocent person, or you can choose to release a few hostages to buy you some time for the heist.
The gunplay in Payday 3 feels really good. The transition between hipfire and aiming down your sights is pretty quick and the guns feel heavy and realistic. The different sights you can use for your weapons are varied so you can definitely find one that works for your preference. The movement in Payday 3 also feels pretty fluid. There is a new slide mechanic but I really didn’t find myself using it too much since it doesn’t work to increase your movement speed or hold too much momentum. Your armor segments regenerate over time if it’s not completely gone which lets you get back into the fight pretty quickly.
The initial fighting feels pretty easy, the waves of basic security feels almost like playing a normal horde mode since they never seem to really pose a real threat of gunning you down. It’s only after about ten to fifteen minutes into the heist that enemies seem to really crowd you and your team and the more armored and tankier enemies come out making it a real challenge. It may have also helped that I did have teammates who were good at communicating and supporting each other during matches, but the combat felt very easy until the escape portion of the heist.
One of the most fun parts of Payday 2 was customization. You’re still able to customize your characters in Payday 3 by unlocking different masks, outfits, and various other cosmetic items. You get access to more as you level up and get more money and you use the cash earned in game from heists to unlock them. There was a currency system set up in the shop when I looked during the preview, but we haven’t been given a real idea of what the real money bundles will consist of other than they will only be for cosmetic items.
Overall, I’m pretty excited to play Payday 3 again, especially with the same friends I played Payday 2 with and relive those old memories in a modern setting. Payday 3 is also going to be cross platform and cross progression so you can play anywhere and with anyone you want. It’s set to have quite a bit of post-launch content updates as well – like new characters, heists, weapons, and updated skills and challenges – so hopefully there’s a good flow of new stuff to keep players invested. Payday 2 had 20 DLC packs after launch so it’s not a huge worry of mine.