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When I first played Payday 3, I was a little blown away by the game. It felt like crime bottled in a jar, shaken into a drunken frenzy, and then smashed on the floor to unleash a violent murder-spree onto anyone looking to get in your way. I still stand-by what I said when I say that Payday 3’s gameplay is fantastic and polished, however in the weeks since the game’s release – it’s becoming apparent that some of the features that kept players hooked on Payday 2 haven’t quite made their way into the sequel.
Fans looking for the nostalgic experience, or even simply a more whole experience, have found themselves looking back to the game released in 2012, rather than 2023’s sequel. In fact, in the last 24 hours, 34.6K players have logged into the older game, compared to a measly 17.7K players on Payday 3. You can have a look at these stats yourself via the SteamDB pages for both Payday 2 and Payday 3.
Payday 3’s launch should have been a fairly straightforward one. Gameplay and heists were good, if not slightly brief, and the game’s performance was pretty standard. However, a slew of matchmaking issues and a poor long-term progression roadmap killed the game’s momentum entirely.
In fact, with Payday 3’s all-time peak hitting 77K, the previous game’s player-count in the last 24 hours is almost half of that. Insane for a game old enough to start secondary school in the UK.
From the looks of the stats – it doesn’t look great for the fate of Payday 3. However, I am an optimist. Despite video game enthusiasts having been kicked in the shins far too many times recently, Payday 3 feels like it’s going to be an exception.
Matchmaking issues are, though still persistent, on the mend, and the developers have recently come forward stating that there’s going to be changes to progression coming in an update soon. This was said by Andreas (Lead Producer on Payday 3) in a recent developer live-stream, though previous comments that “[they] are going to make challenges easier to find” are worrying players who want more than just visual changes.
The game’s progression systems at the moment are holding it back, with challenges being a matter of quantity rather than quality. For example, our Payday 3 review digs at the “Beat this heist a certain number of times on this difficulty” challenge which is repeated often with different variables inserted willy-nilly.
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