The Sad Downfall Of Payday 3
Games having sequels is the biggest risk to take if you're a gaming company, but when done well, it could make the game develop into a successful series. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the sad downfall of payday 3, chapter 1, The Beginning, after being published on October 18th, 2011. Overkill Software's Payday the Heist was given mixed reviews, being an interesting concept with gameplay that would definitely need some improvement.
Fast forward to August of 2013. Overkill published the long-awaited sequel to Payday, Payday 2, and it was better than most people expected. Payday 2 has received generally positive reviews from critics with General praise from cooperative elements, but heavy criticism for the friendly AI IGN praised its cooperative gameplay, stealth mechanics, and sound design but was not impressed with the graphical quality of the joystick and was impressed with the depth of customization, level progression, and random elements.
Euro Gamers say that when all its clunky years suddenly align, the result remains phenomenal: a combination of Left for Dead randomly generated Mayhem and the muscular precision of a hardcore shooter topped off with the big screen frion of being a smart Suited, bright mask guy with an AK ordering the hostages on the floor or standing in the street holding off the SWAT team in a flurry of bullets and thunder PC.
The gamer concluded that the game was a smart co-op shooting slightly undermined by poor Stu mechanics and dogged insistence on withholding the best toys. It is best to say that the game was a pleasant surprise and gained a lot of attention in the mid-2010s. For being a chain-paced game that refreshed the gaming space, while it was a great game, it would show its many flies that proceed to lead them down a road they cannot come back from.
In Chapter 2, the cracks start, as developer Starbury Studios announced in May 2016 that Payday 3 was in development at Overkill Software after Starbur acquired the rights to the intellectual property from 505 Games for around $30 million in March 2021. Pon committed to paying 50 million EUR to assist in the game's development and marketing, including more than 18 months of post-launch support using the game as a service model.
Payday 3 was developed using Unreal Engine 4, but will be upgraded to use Unreal Engine 5 post-launch on January 1st, 2023. A teaser trailer titled Criminal Dawn was released, revealing its logo. In June, Overkill announced that the game would be released on September 18th, 2023, for pre-orders of the silver and gold editions, while the standard edition was released on September 2nd.
I'm usually not excited about games before they come out, but I was very excited for the release of Payday 3. Unfortunately, the game was a complete disaster. When I opened it, I was greeted with an infinite loading screen. I went online to see if others were having the same issue, and they were eventually.
The game led me through a loading screen and into the main menu. I looked at an inventory and saw that the melee weapon slot was gone. Melee weapons were a huge part of Payday 2, and seeing them was saddening. Not only that, they removed Park decks in Payday 2 perk decks, which were unique skills that allowed the player to specialize in a certain play style.
For example, if a player wanted to run around at the speed of sound, dodging and avoiding every bullet that was fired at them, then there's a perk deck for that. If you want to be in the movable tank that can eat thousands of rounds of ammunition, there's a perk for that. That whole concept has been completely removed.
The only thing that this game adds are the overkill weapons. Overkill weapons are weapons you can call in after getting a certain number of kills. These weapons are quite powerful, but they added almost no value to the game. The developer took away two huge parts of Payday 2 without supplementing the cut content.
I look at the start button and realize that there's no offline mode. Payday 2 could easily be played by yourself offline if the servers are down or you want to play solo. It takes less than 20 seconds to get into a heist payday 3 for reasons Beyond Me has opted to do away with this in exchange for always being online.
Nothing about the game functioned properly. I waited hours to get into a game, and it never happened. Although the actual gameplay remained fun, the charm and comedy of Payday 2 has been greatly diminished, in Payday 2 there was a man called Bane who acted like The Mastermind behind the operation, he had hundreds of memorable lines and always acted like a professional he has been replaced by a woman called shade and she is a massive downgrade she has no memorable lines and her attempt at humor fall completely flat they also removed enemies changing as the difficulty increases, in Payday 2 different difficulties would make the enemies more powerful in exchange for higher rewards to signify their increasing power they would obtain better uniforms and weaponry.
The game keeps cutting content that was crucial to Payday 2 without adding more to justify it. This whole mess has killed the player base for the game and has left the community in shambles. Months after release, none of these issues have been fixed. Payday 3 is one of the biggest disappointments in gaming, and even after being out for months, they still have not come close to fixing it.
The player count is slowly withering away, and Payday 2 has been abandoned. The true heist was the $40 I spent on this game. Payday 3 received average reviews from critics. Eurogamer called it a shallow shooter that doesn't offer anyone near enough bang for your ill-gotten buck. IGN wrote that Payday 3's Cooperative Heights are off to a strong start, even if the vault is a bit bare at the moment.
Digital Trends says that Payday 3 doesn't shake up its predecessor's formula much, but a strong batch of initial heists set the live service shooter up for Success: upon launch, the game servers failed due to the massive influx of players, making the game almost unplayable. Since the game is online, only these outages have lasted for days.
Starb announced that the game has attracted more than 1.3 million players since its launch, while the launch itself was a major success. It proceeded to be a horrific reality for Starb Studios, chapter 3. In conclusion, basically, the developers force you to play it their way, ignoring every other play style, and thought forcing you to play every gun in style would make you happy.
What does that do, though? By God, people give Crime Boss a bad rep, but I'll be honest, Crime Boss Rock K City is 10 times more fun than Payday 3 ever was for me. I found it far more replayable and enjoyable, kind of like comparing apples to oranges since that's a Rog likee, but they released more content than Payday 3 ever had, which is quite sad if you think about that.
