Crashes, server problems, hilarious dev memes, Payday 3 has started on a rocky road but what does the future hold? Smooth gameplay, realistic graphics, and finally a new game in one of gaming’s favorite series.

Coming out on the 21st of September in 2023 Payday 3 was in no way guaranteed to be good like its predecessor. But with continued dev support and updates this game could easily surpass Payday 2. With the benefits of time like better graphics, frame rates, and buttery smooth gameplay, this game could be one of the best games to come out this year.

Now for some base rules of this review, in my opinion having server issues being the reason that a game receives a low score is unfair since a review should be first and foremost about the gameplay and story itself but don’t get it twisted I will address these issues in my final rating but it will not have the final word like the reviews of many others.
Payday 3 is a game about robbing almost everything you could possibly think of, from banks and jewelry stores to armored convoys and nightclubs the Payday games are an engaging power fantasy on lower difficulties and a headache inducing challenge for those who are brave enough to play on the higher difficulty levels. Payday 3 is an overall improvement on Payday 2 in terms of gunplay and with the streamlining of the game’s skill system but this doesn’t mean the game is flawless.

Payday 3 is essentially a game split into two halves, the run and gun type of players who prefer to blast away the cops with heavy weaponry and burn their way through a vault with thermite and the players who prefer to fully stealth a heist, getting in and out of the vault with the cash without any alarms being raised. The first type of players have almost entirely benefited with the gunplay being much smoother than Payday 2, for example the controls are both much more responsive and customizing those settings has become much easier and simpler with the release of Payday 3. I don’t have much experience with stealth from Payday 2 but with what i’ve experienced in 3 it requires a lot of pre-acquired knowledge, for example in the first heist both of the keycards that you need to get into both the power and security rooms are hidden on the belts of guards, if you’re just starting the game there is no way you could possibly know this which will likely result in you going loud on your first couple of runs until you find this little detail. The problems of the stealth system isn’t really that apparent to new players until you get to some of the later heists which require stealth, the problem with this requirement is with the two modes in the game casing mode and mask mode each having their own benefits and drawbacks but there is one inclusion that I must mention, when you switch from casing mode to mask mode this is basically an all in type of choice since there is no option to remove the mask once it is on which is a problem when it is more beneficial in some cases to not have the mask on at all.

I rated this game off of 5 categories each one having a max of 2 points for a final tally of 10, the categories are gameplay, story, accessibility, creativity, and innovation. For gameplay I rate it a 2 because of the minimal input lag and simplicity of understanding how all the skills work, if you put the time into learning this game’s mechanics you will be massively rewarded with how completing a heist stealthily feels so satisfying once you learn all the layouts of the various heists. The exact same thing can be said for the run and gun type of gameplay with the weapons’ sound effects being best in class and the enemies being great if sometimes frustrating due to the sheer number but I always say that my bullets need targets and Payday 3 surely doesn’t have a lack of targets.

The story is where this game takes a massive hit compared to other games released around the same time, the story bits of the game are shown off in these optional slideshow like cutscenes that seem like they were ripped straight out of one of the worst examples of game design which is called Redfall which incorporates the same type of slideshow cutscenes but to even less success than Payday. My problem with these cutscenes isn’t the story they tell but the way that they tell it since with a vast majority of them being static slides there really isn’t anything shown to the player, another problem I noticed during my time in Payday is that when you’re watching these cutscenes the subtitles will cut out two or three seconds into a 1-2 minute cutscene which is a big problem because if either the player doesn’t know the voices of the characters yet or they introduce a new one the player won’t know who is talking in that moment this problem could’ve been avoided if the devs went for actual cutscenes like almost every other game released in recent years uses because of these faults the story gets ½ a point.

Accessibility is yet another shaky subject for Payday 3, in terms of stealth this game relies on a lot of pre-acquired knowledge which isn’t a problem on it’s own but when some players tend to prefer that type of gameplay it does put a sort of stranglehold on their enjoyment for that first couple hours of gameplay but another argument can be made that stealth is meant to be a game of mastery and perfection which I do sort of agree with. I won’t lie and say that the story of the game is complex but it surely isn’t understandable for someone who is just joining the heisters of the payday series either since the very first cutscene starts out with a group of characters a new player would’ve never met explaining an event that means relatively nothing to them, because of this accessibility will be taking a small hit. Compared to Payday 2 this game is small scale which really helps when a new player is involved since there is a whole lot less to teach them and they won’t likely have to rely on any YouTube tutorials to let them play in the way they want which is a definite plus for this series. In the end I give accessibility a 1.5, the story drawbacks are just a little too big for me to just brush under the rug but everything else is a plus in my book.

As for creativity, this is a bit of a subjective topic however I feel there is a lot for me to talk about when it comes to how this game changes from the previous one. This game does add some new features that are different from Payday 2 but that list is overall pretty short compared to the long list of weapons, maps, and customization options that it removed. Going on to the list of things the new game added, it added items which are objects in your inventory that can be placed on the map these devices can range from jammers, mines, cameras, and motion sensors which all have different uses for example, the infrasonic mine as it is called in the game is a placeable sonic mine that stuns any enemy within it’s blast range, this device is useful since after it’s detonation it gives you a clear shot on any enemy’s weak spot for a quick kill. Payday 3 also added a new category of weaponry called overkill weapons which include a grenade launcher with twelve rounds and a .50 caliber sniper rifle which is a vast improvement on the two type of snipers that you can have in your regular primary slot, these weapons act on a type of meter which fills as you do actions around the map with killing enemies being the fastest way to fill this meter, these weapons are a welcome improvement since they can spice up the regular combat however they do have a drawback in that it is completely random where these weapons drop so they could totally drop in a place that you simply cannot reach without dying. I have played all the heists that the game has to offer and they all have their suggested play styles with my favorites being the first bank heist called No Rest for the Wicked and the heist on the art museum called Under the Surphaze, both these heists tend to prefer the stealth type of gameplay without it being outright needed like it is in Rock the Cradle in which if you raise the alarm at all the hard drive which you’re supposed to steal starts getting deleted. Given all the points that I’ve made, I give creativity a 1.5 it is simply held back by the sheer amount of content which was removed from the previous game.

Innovation-wise, I was directly comparing Payday 3 to its predecessor Payday 2 in how different the games, enemies, and heists are. These games are very similar in some ways and different in others, Payday 3 vastly benefits from being released in 2023 like having better frame rates, graphics, and more responsive inputs, most of these benefits can be seen in the game’s gunplay which is much less clunky compared to the previous game. The weapons are definitely in Payday 2’s favor since there is a much bigger selection in it but I attribute this to the sheer amount of time that game has been out with it having plenty of time to add more content through updates, so this will not affect the final score as much as it would have otherwise. The heists in 3 tend to favor different play styles depending on which heist you’re playing with heists like Under the Surphaze and Rock the Cradle preferring stealth and others like Road Rage being entirely run and gun type gameplay. With the preferred play styles and additions to the inventory you can bring into each heist I feel that with some after launch support this game can easily surpass the previous one in terms of player choice and overall diversity in content, so Payday 3 gets a 1.5 in innovation only being held back by the content at launch which I am confident will be expanded upon in later updates.

With everything being said this game gets a final rating of 8/10 from me, only being held back by it’s joke of cutscenes and lack of content at release, I feel that content will be added but fixing the cutscenes isn’t something that I think is gonna happen so we’ll just have to live with watching slideshows to get this game’s story. In the end Payday 3 isn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been when you actually give the game a shot.