Everything You Need To Know Before Playing Payday 3 (beginner's Guide)
Intro
Welcome to Payday 3, the newest installment in the Payday series. Whether you're a former payday player or brand new to the franchise, this beginner's guide should help you get up to speed on the basics of Payday 3. If you want to skip ahead to a specific topic or hop back and forth between sections, you can do so by using the chapters outlined in the article timeline.
Game versions
Let's start with buying the game itself, which is available in three different versions. You can access every single piece of playable content right now just by buying the standard edition of the game for 40 US dollars. If you're looking to acquire some bonus cosmetics and access to Future Payday, you have two different options.
And the six-month season pass, which down the line will provide you with additional tailor packs, weapon packs, and two more heists. Liberty Mask, and Golden State Gloves Cosmetics. As well as the one-year season pass, which down the line will provide you with additional tailor packs, weapon packs, and four more heists.
Story recap
Once you have the game, you'll surely want to know what's going on with the story and its characters, especially if you haven't played previous payday titles. So let's do a quick recap. Long after the conclusion of Payday 2, in the gang's retirement, an attempt is made on their lives. The payday gang manages to dodge this at the last second, but with their offshore accounts emptied, they're going to need some cash if they want to get their revenge.
The five surviving playable members of the Payday 2 Gang featured in Payday 3 include Dallas Wolf. Chains. Hoxton, and Joy, with a sixth new playable character being introduced to the payday franchise named Pearl Plain. As any of the six, you're tasked with completing various heists to refresh your cash stockpiles and exact your revenge , which takes us to the start of the game.
Heists
The game ships with eight heists in total, seven of which are optionally complete and used exclusively, Stealth, and all of which are unlocked to play. The very second that tells the narrative of the game in between these heists on the mission selection screen are the cinematic articles that tell the narrative of the game that are unlocked as you complete the heists in sequential order.
These heists can be completed with a squad of up to four total players or completely solo, in which case you'll be loaded in with three AI teammates. You can select how you'd like to squad up by opting for the public friends-only or invite-only matchmaking options. Each heist also has four selectable difficulties: normal, very hard, and overkill, with the rewards increasing along with the difficulty.
They all share a similar phase breakdown; each heist will begin in the stealth phase with gameplay features that allow players to proceed with the objective undetected. Use this time to lay the place out and progress the mission as much as possible without any resistance. However, once you are caught doing some illegal activity, be it that you masked up and had your gun out or went into a location that you weren't supposed to be in, you will enter the negotiation phase, where you can capture hostages and negotiate with the police to delay future phases immediately after this is the anticipation.
Phase, otherwise known as The Calm Before the Storm, features a countdown timer that signals when the cops will begin the assault phase. Once the assault phase begins, waves of police backup will roll in to try and take you out as you continue to complete Heist objectives and progress the mission.
Finally, the heist will end with the no-return phase, which will begin when the heist is at its last legs or when endless waves of police will continue spawning until the payday. The gang has been taken out or has made its escape now. As I stated previously, seven of the eight heists can be completed all within that first stealth phase if you'd like; however, exiting that stealth phase at any point will then take you through the rest of the phases throughout the remainder of the heist.
A few other things to know about heists are that they all feature small item pickups like wads of cash that you can scavenge infinitely, but where the real money's at is in the big item pickups that are held on your back, which can only be held one at a time, which is a big tip for these especially.
If you are playing solo, you can throw these big item pickups directly at your AI teammates to make them carry them and follow you to the deposit site, as they will never grab them on their own. Simply put, the more big bags you bank, the more money you receive at the end of the heist.
Currencies
Speaking of money, there are two types of currencies: PayDay and PayDay 3, and, don't worry, neither of them is based on microtransactions. Thank the heavens, the first is that cash is pretty straightforward; you are rewarded with cash after completing a heist with better performance and higher difficulty.
Most things on Payday, such as weapons mods and lots of cosmetics, can be purchased directly with cash. However, some items in Payday are only purchasable using the second currency, Stacks. C-stacks are the alternate currency in Payday that is purchased using cash, but with a twist: when it comes to C-stacks, their cash price increases every time you buy them, with that cost resetting to the base price every week.
Sea stacks are typically used for buying the rarest endgame items, such as strong preset weapons and extremely rare cosmetics. Because their price increases with each purchase but resets every week, it's in your best interest to try and always make sure you buy a few rounds of C Stacks at least once a week to take advantage of their low cost.
As often as possible, buying a ton of them all at once is what will really hurt your stockpile of accrued cash.
Progression
Next up, let's talk about progression and systems. In Payday 3, there are two primary progression metrics called XP and infamy. The basic gist of it is that XP levels up your weapons and skills, whereas Infamy levels up your account so that you can purchase new weapons, skills, and cosmetics.
At the end of every heist, you will be rewarded with XP for the weapons and skills that you equipped during that heist. specific Heist, we'll talk more in depth about what earning XP for weapons and skills does as we get to those sections, but the main idea is that the more you use something in Payday, the better it gets now.
Infamy is rewarded a bit differently. On the main menu of Payday 3, you'll find the challenges tab, which contains three subcategories: Heist's career and combat These first and third categories contain all sorts of challenges specific to different heists and combat playstyles, respectively, granting infamy points upon completion to level up your account.
