It’s been a troublesome 12 months for Starbreeze, and for Payday 3’s gamers, however the heist FPS has each likelihood of constructing a valiant comeback. At launch, the much-anticipated sequel to the beloved Payday 2 completely tanked, stricken by so many technical points that individuals actually couldn’t get right into a match. Even when the servers had been straightened out, many gameplay options that the sequence devoted had come to anticipate had been lacking. Core programs had been redesigned and the final expertise, in comparison with Payday 3’s predecessors, was discovered wanting. Nonetheless, the crime shooter has simply handed a vital milestone, incomes a ‘mostly positive’ Steam ranking for the primary time. Talking solely to PCGamesN, lead producer Andreas Penniger and neighborhood head Almir Listo clarify how Starbreeze is constructing a greater future for Payday 3.
Every little thing was set. Payday 2 had been a large success, the pre-launch marketing campaign had earned much more goodwill, and preliminary beta exams appeared constructive. On paper, Payday 3 was a grand slam – however the 77,000 gamers who flocked to the FPS recreation on Steam on launch day had been shortly disillusioned. Servers had been damaged or impenetrable and when the shooter did work, it felt like a distant cry from the sequence’ glory days. Penniger remembers it effectively.
“Our energy was like ‘we’re a rock band, and we’re coming onto the stage, and we’ve got a new album.’ And the whole stage just collapsed and everyone left.”
“We suffered from major technical issues, so the game was more or less unplayable for several weeks,” Listo continues. “When you have a launch like we did – a disastrous launch, where nobody is able to play the game – there is no place to hide. But it’s important that we don’t use the technical issues as an excuse because we clearly missed the mark from an experience point of view as well. The game just felt unfinished. It was a bad experience for our players.”
So what occurred? By the point Payday 3 arrived, Payday 2 had been in energetic growth for round ten years. DLC, updates, and ongoing neighborhood help had reworked the underground success of the primary recreation right into a bona fide megahit. Absolutely, by now, it was clear what labored for Payday and what gamers wished. How did Starbreeze, in Listo’s phrases, “mess up”?
“It’s hard to make videogames, and it’s particularly difficult to follow up on the kind of success that Payday 2 was, not only at its launch, but also in the ten years succeeding that,” the neighborhood head says. “Andreas and myself were part of the Payday 2 development team at that time. Not everyone, ten years on, was still there. To draw the exact right learning from a ten-year production is challenging, but also every game project is different from another one. I think a lot of small things built up.”
“A lot of the problems were due to the fact that we didn’t do our due diligence well enough,” Penniger provides. “We built Payday 3 while trying to understand what we wanted, in parallel. It ended up being a product that people didn’t resonate with. I think we were a bit confident from the success of Payday 2 that we ended up making decisions too quickly.”
For some time after launch, going to work on Payday 3 was difficult. Criticism from gamers was forthcoming and plentiful. The concurrent consumer base on Steam dropped into the low a whole bunch, and there was a real danger that the sport may die completely. We’ve seen loads of comebacks in recent times – Cyberpunk 2077, No Man’s Sky – however Payday 3 was on the precipice.
“That feeling of tripping on the goal line – you do years of work, only to see it dissolve into nothingness – was the worst situation to be in,” Listo says. “And we needed to meet the neighborhood head-on. But it surely’s not what occurs to you. It’s the way you take care of it. I feel now we have a really sturdy staff right here at Starbreeze, particularly when issues go dangerous.
“If we just put our heads in the sand and continued on, the game would be dead at this point. But even the angriest Payday fans still come from a good place. They want the game to succeed, and their anger is only a reflection of that. They’re not hating on the game just to be haters – they’re telling us what they want the game to have, in order for it to improve.”
The temper began to alter in June 2024, after the discharge of Payday 3’s second chapter, Boys in Blue. Mixed with an overhaul to the sport’s controversial armor system, and the continuing Operation Medic Bag, whereby Starbreeze releases small however common updates designed to optimize Payday 3’s gameplay, the neighborhood has begun to thaw. Within the early days, Starbreeze was extra decided to stay with the massive iterations it had made on Payday 3, regardless of suggestions. Listo says that’s over.
“I think we’re past that point. I think we had that view around launch, but it didn’t come from an objective state of mind – it came from the fact that we worked on something for a very long time, and we believed that a lot of the features weren’t appreciated because they just weren’t fleshed out enough yet. It took us time to zoom out and see that we just made bad decisions here. But now we’re able to see the game through that lens.”
“Something we’ve learned is to try and understand the community, understand what made Payday 2 successful, and then to try and translate that into a more modern context,” Penniger continues. “While we haven’t communicated what year two might be, for me, the game currently suffers from a split personality – trying to be too many things at once. Our focus needs to be a stronger core fantasy. Every heist needs to feel more tense, open-ended, and rewarding.”
The highway again for Payday 3 should be lengthy, however a minimum of Starbreeze can see it now. Each Listo and Penniger are assured the sport can turn out to be what individuals had been anticipating, and recapture that unique 70,000-plus participant base.
“For me it’s three things,” Listo concludes. “One is to improve the experience and make the game better and better. Two, it’s regaining the trust and respect of the community. And three, it’s to tell a great story. There’s a lot of heart and soul to the storytelling in Payday, and that’s what I’m looking forward to in the coming months.”
