Payday 3 Is About To Get Some Huge Updates

Today's topic

We all know that when a game has had a bad launch or just downgrades itself into something horrible, the best course of action is to make it better. Obviously, it may not seem like a hard concept, but we do live in the era of it now. Fix it later, and the chances of you getting a feature-complete or even fully-fledged working game at launch are those of being struck by a meteorite.

But one thing that I will give Star Breeze is that they're actually going out of their way to fix the downfall of their game.

Payday 3 is dead!

Unlike a certain company, at this point you know I'm talking about payday 3. This lovely little sequel has succeeded at being an absolute flop, and so much so that there are more people currently playing the second installment of Payday than the third one by almost 60 times its player count, but hey, don't worry, though the developers have come out with an operation to save this game from itself, and I want to go over that with you today.

Let's dive into it.

This is operation medic bag

Looking at this road map, there is a lot here. Surprisingly enough, not too long ago, they put out something on X where they wanted the community to tell them what they wanted, and I don't remember what I put in there, but there were a lot of good suggestions, and most of them made it.

Kicking things off, let's talk about the solo mode and offline mode. They give a PR statement pretty much saying that it's clear to them that the community wants to play the game reliably and on their own terms. No [__]], then they give the following statement: First, we will be developing a standalone solo mode you can get into without going through the matchmaking flow; this will be a local game on your own machine, thereby circumventing the need to connect to a server.

They then say that this is going to be rolled out into two different phases. The first phase will still require an internet connection to their backend for progression unlocks. Etc., Phase 2 will look at improving solo mode without requiring an internet connection. We don't know when, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I mean, this is planned for 2024, so this could show up literally on December 31st. Moving on to stability in matchmaking and server browsers, they fully admit here that their matchmaking isn't doing well at keeping people together, and again, no They say that they have a number of social and cooperative features planned for 2024, but they don't give specifics.

And at the end of the second paragraph, they do say how they're looking to bring back a crime-style server browser, which is good, you know, and one thing that I've seen a lot of people say is. Well, what's the point? There aren't that many heists. Well, there weren't a lot of heists in Payday 2, and they still had a crime net, so I don't really get that argument personally.

Next is challenge-based progression. Star Bre talks about how their challenge-based progression didn't achieve the goals they intended, and because of that, they're doing away with the system. Thankfully, in its place, you're going to get infamy for completing Heist, just like in Payday 2. Now, with the existing challenge framework, it will be repurposed to give cosmetic rewards for hardcore accomplishments instead, which I think is infinitely better than what is happening right now.

I want it to be known to any developer out there who plans on making a game where progression is tied to challenges. Don't okay, Halo Infinite tried, and it failed. This game tried it, and it failed. For the UI revamp, they pretty much just say that they're going to make it more intuitive, include a simplified friends menu, and make a better menu UI that better communicates the heisting theme.

I don't know what any of that means personally, but hey, we'll just have to see, but it's time for the two topics that are the highlights in my opinion: new content and DLC pricing for new content. They say there are three more DLCs they plan to launch in 2024, along with another free Heist skill line, cosmetics, a free LMG primary, and more.

As for the DLC pricing, all they really say is that they are rethinking their pricing for upcoming DLCs, and that's really it. Now we all should know that Payday's first paid DLC syntax error was horribly I received the bundle that consisted of 1/3 gameplay and 2/3 cosmetics, costing a whopping $18.

USD, but if you didn't care about the cosmetics and just wanted the heist, it was still $10. And at a time when the game was arterially bleeding players fast, this was the most toned deaf [__] start stes could have done. We have this new heist, and it's going to cost $10. Yeah, I know that was the worst thing y'all could have done hands down now.

What I'm hoping for personally is that they go the Payday 2 route and make their DLCs like $5 or something now, unless it's like a multi-day heist. I understand, but I don't see these needing to cost more than $5, and I think that's really about it. I want to touch on it when it comes to the operation medic bag road map.

For my finals thoughts.

But for my final thoughts, I'm feeling two different ways about this. On the one hand. I'm happy that Star Breeze is actually listening to us and isn't ignoring what we're wanting out of a Payday game, seeing them rethink their strategies for delivering content and delivering features. Etc., it's nice and something that should be acknowledged.

But on the other hand, they're not really doing anything new. I mean, the single-player offline mode was a launch feature 10 years ago. For the most part, I know that the last thing might be subjective because there are people who think that all DLCs should be free, but we can at least agree that everything else is pretty damn clear.

As far as my personal experiences with Payday 3 go to this day, I've looked at it as a game that exists. Right, I try to give it a chance after chance after chance, and I just don't really like it. I try to play it here and there, but it feels as shallow as a puppy's piss puddle. I also still have a really bad performance with this game, like I'll get things like frame dips and hitching, and it's just not a fun time.

I really do hope that this operation will transform Payday 3 into a game that'll feel like a true successor to Payday 2. Even then, that's a tall ladder to climb, and one that Star Breeze is unfortunately going to have to climb. This is truly their last chance, in my opinion, to do anything good with the game before it becomes a piece of abandoned wear, but not by them but by the community.

Thanks for watching :)

Now I turn the mic to you. As always, I want to give a huge shout-out to the current members of the channel. Y'all are absolute badasses.

Thank you so much. This is Sir Blackout signing off to see how this is going to turn out, and I genuinely hope that it turns out great.