Payday 3 Leads Called Its Launch "Disastrous" & Discussed Future Plans

Co-op action FPS Payday 3's launch has been as successful as expected. In contrast to the release of its prequel, the new Starbreeze game had technical issues, and the number of concurrent players was discomforting. In a recent interview with PCGamesN, Starbreeze's Lead Producer Andreas Penniger and Community Head Almir Listo commented on the issues related to the game's release and discussed what can be done to improve the project in the future.

Lead Producer Andreas Penninger described the game's launch as a failed rock concert: "Our energy was like 'we're a rock band, and we're coming onto the stage, and we've got a new album.' And the whole stage just collapsed and everyone left." Community Head Almir Listo explained that they suffered from major technical issues, which made the game "more or less unplayable for several weeks." He continued: "When you have a launch like we did – a disastrous launch, where nobody is able to play the game – there is no place to hide."

Almir Listo noted that they didn't use technical issues as an excuse, as they "missed the mark from an experience point of view as well." Listo said: "The game just felt unfinished. It was a bad experience for our players." Andreas Penninger supposed that they were "a bit confident from the success of Payday 2" and ended up making decisions too fast.

The second chapter of Payday 3, Boys in Blue, changed the mood of the audience as the creators started shipping smaller but more frequent updates instead of big releases. The Lead Producer shared: "Something we've learned is to try and understand the community, understand what made Payday 2 successful, and then to try and translate that into a more modern context." He also commented on the potential issues of Payday 3: "The game currently suffers from a split personality – trying to be too many things at once. Our focus needs to be a stronger core fantasy. Every heist needs to feel more tense, open-ended, and rewarding."

Read the interview here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.