The Payday 3 Open Beta Isn't Perfect, But

Payday 3 is here, and it's so good. As a long-time fan of the Payday series, the announcement of Payday 3 sent me reeling from the open betas this weekend, so I put that straight on my SSD, grabbed a friend, and jumped right in. Well, try to, but we'll get there. It may, of course, be different. Second, it's important to remember that this is a beta build of the game, and some of the bugs encountered in the beta may not be present in the final product.

Lastly spoilers I like the game so much that bumbling around here is my experience with the first day of the Payday 3 open beta. Starting off strong, the hype comes to a grinding halt as I realize I have to sign up for Starbury's Nebula account and connect that to Steam. 10 minutes of fiddling around later, my friend and I encounter a very painful bug.

We just can't join each other's lobbies, not in game or through Steam, which for a party-based cob game like Payday is extremely frustrating and a little disheartening. Not only that, but joining my first match made the game since there's no offline play or private matches allowed yet. It just didn't really begin after the countdown.

Not off to a good start here, but again, this is a server stress test, so we weren't too mad about it. Eventually, the issue fixed itself, and we rolled into our first game. The gameplay, the graphics, the little details on the player's physics, and bumping into civilians all made Payday 3 a glorious experience initially.

Moving around and relearning the controls felt a bit strange; some keys had been rebounded by default, so accidental grenades found themselves in the middle of teammates more often than not, regardless. Once we got used to the controls, it felt like classic payday: lots of bullets, lots of cops, and lots of money.

Besides, some particularly bullet-spongy cops Payday 3 actually felt quite similar to the two in many aspects, just with a shiny coat of paint. Not in every way, mind you; in fact, the biggest change between the two is that the new engine is gone, as are the days of dealing with diesel engines. Jake, and now we celebrate the Unreal Engine in all its glory.

With that said, there is a level of charm missing from Payday 3. Part of me is actually going to miss Diesel, though that could just be the Stockholm syndrome setting in. Through the beta, you'll lock in a very small selection of equipment, including the Car 9 assault rifle. Sig 40, a couple of grenades, and your choice of a medical kit or ammo box.

You also only have access to one music track and one Heist No Rest for the Wicked, which is your stock standard. Welcome to the Crime Bank job. It's a great starting heist with both stealth and loud options. It's not too overwhelming as it introduces new players to both interior and exterior objectives, and there's very little randomization, so it's a great tutorial for practicing.

I admit that on my first go, I spent a lot of time Bumble fighting around, trying to figure out the new controls and get used to the movement there. There are some very welcome movement changes here, including a mental system so you don't eat yourself off buildings trying to do some janky parkour and a slide mechanic that allows you to feel a bit more like an action movie star.

Once I got back into the swing of things. I felt right at home with banging, music, civilian dominance, and cool gun play, including the addition of a new Overkill weapon that acts like an ultimate ability. On the note of weapons I mentioned earlier, very bullet-spongy cops I have no idea if this is just a bug with enemy health being turned up way too high or if they've introduced a new armor system, but my God, it felt like I had to dump an entire magnetism on enemies to take them down.

At least headshots still make helmets fly. There were several small details I was impressed with too, as I mentioned bumping into civilians and having them properly react to the clothing physics on other characters clothing environmental damage like using a fire extinguisher as a detonation device, being able to shoot a taser battery off his hip to damage enemies, and even the ability to trade hostages before the assault phase takes place.

I'm actually quite intrigued by that change. A side note on that: when you get down to three times, you get taken into custody the same as before except now instead of disappearing out of existence, you just die, and it is hilarious in Payday 3 that you can actually trade hostages in exchange for added time before the assault phase begins, meaning you have more time to start or complete objectives without interruption or to set up defenses.

At the end of The Heist, you see or XP new attachments, equipment unlocks, and challenges. There are so many challenges, but the strange thing is that you couldn't check any of them to see what you actually did to complete them or what any of the other challenges were. So you got the satisfaction of doing a lot of stuff, but you don't really know what you did.

Good job, I guess. Look, there are some glaring issues with the beta, especially to do with matchmaking and networking, but overall. I did enjoy my time with it, and I am very excited to play the full game that said Starbury's Please use this beta to recognize that the networking is atrocious and fix it before the release.

I know this is just a beta build, so I'm hoping these bugs have already been ironed out. The Payday 3 beta is still open for another day or two, depending on your time zones. It's free, so get in and enjoy yourself, fans of Payday 2. You won't be disappointed; hopefully, there are no promises. Ensure that the red sub button turns white before you skedaddle.

I'd love to hear what you thought about it if you gave it a crack.