A year ago, Payday 3 was released to a lot of problems. The game had issues with outages that lasted for over a week, and when players finally got to try it out, they didn’t like it much. There were also problems with patches not being released on time, communication breaking down, and some senior staff members losing their jobs. Despite all these challenges, the developers at Starbreeze are still hopeful about the game’s future.
When Payday 3 first came out in September 2023, it faced a disaster. The game’s servers couldn’t handle the huge number of players trying to connect, and even after patches were released, the game still didn’t work well. Over a year later, there are only 729 people playing the game on Steam, which is a very small number compared to the thousands still playing Payday 2, which was released back in 2013.
Earlier this year, Starbreeze had to make some changes at the top, replacing the CEO and other senior staff members. Despite all these setbacks, lead producer Andreas Penniger is determined to keep working on Payday 3. The game has slowly been improving, with more recent reviews being more positive than before. Penniger admitted that the launch was a disaster, but the team is now able to see their mistakes and are working to make the game better.
The goal now is to focus on what made Payday 2 successful and bring that into a more modern context. Penniger wants each heist in the game to be tense, open-ended, and rewarding. However, with the game struggling to get even 1,000 players at its peak in a day, it’s going to be a tough road ahead. Other games like Borderlands 3 are still attracting a lot more players, making it hard for Payday 3 to compete.
Despite the challenges, the developers are determined to turn things around and make Payday 3 a success. Only time will tell if their efforts will pay off and if the game can regain its audience. It will be interesting to see how things unfold and if Payday 3 can make a comeback in the gaming world.