Summary
The journey of the infamous mastermind crew Dallas, Hoxton, Chains, and Wolf will soon enter a new chapter inPayday 3, which has already earned two Gamescom Awards.Payday 3will continue the ongoing story of these familiar criminals, bringing them out of their early
retirement in Washington D.C. to settle some unfinished business in New York. This new sequel will also bring many other gameplay changes and improvements to the co-op shooter and heist simulator that fans know and love.
After multiple beta test periods,Payday 3’s release dateis fast approaching, and it will be available initially as a Standard Edition, Silver Edition, or Gold Edition. Each of these offers will include the base game, while the Silver Edition includes the first Season Pass, and the Gold Edition includes the first and second Season Passes.Payday 3is expected to release plenty of new content throughout the first two Season Passes according to the roadmap that covers all of year one so far. Also, given how much content was released forPayday 2, there’s a good chance thatPayday 3will continue to receive post-launch support far beyond year one as well.
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Gameplay Changes and Improvements that Payday 3 Brings to the Franchise
Stealth inPayday 3is still a challenging playstyle, though it’s seen some new updates that make the difficulty slightly more approachable. Notably, there are more ways to engage with missions in Casing mode before players put their masks on. For example, being caught in private areas while in Casing mode isn’t always an instant-fail for stealth, instead, players will be given multiple chances to be escorted back to public areas before any combat begins.
The higher difficulties inPayday 2severely increase the intensity of combat with more abundant and resilient enemies, which encourages players to use stealth to avoidgoing loud inPayday 2. WhilePayday 3’s combat is still anticipated to be more intense on higher difficulties, the sequel mixes things up by adding Private Security Modifiers to the higher difficulties that will rotate on a weekly basis. These new mission modifiers introduce things like penalties to players’ skill proficiencies, increased enemy frequency and lethality, indestructible security devices, and more.
The new Overkill weapons are essentially the “special” weapons fromPayday 2, except that they can now be equipped in addition to primary and secondary weapons. These heavy-ordinance weapons won’t be permanently available, but players can temporarily call them into missions after accumulating enough enemy kills. Other noteworthy new features and quality-of-life improvements thatPayday 3introduces include:
Post-Launch Support, DLCs, and Community Mods for Payday 3
Throughout the first year ofPayday 3’s release, there will be two separate Season Passes and four major DLCs among a variety of other content, like seasonal events, arsenal expansions, and eventually the upgrade toUnreal Engine 5.Payday 3will also include microtransactions, which are said to exclusively offer cosmetic items. It’s unknown how many heist missions will be available immediately whenPayday 3releases, but the two Seasons throughout year one will be adding eight new heists, among other content.
Beyond official post-release content, players should also keep an eye on the modding community forPayday 3.Mods for Payday 2are incredibly popular among the player base and have gone on to receive praise from the game’s developers, so it’s highly likely thatPayday 3will still allow players to mod the game to certain extents. WhilePayday 3may not have official integration for console players, the always-online game is expected to allow modding on PC.
Payday 3releases on September 21 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
