Payday 3 developer Starbreeze has addressed the game's rocky launch and revealed content players can expect soon, such as two legacy heists from Payday 2.
In Starbreeze's first development update video, lead producer Andreas Häll-Penninger explained Payday 3's turbulent introduction, which saw several issues and no update for more than six weeks.
"A lot of you want to know why this happened and what we've done to make sure we don't end up in this situation again," Häll-Penninger said. "To make a long, complicated, and technical story short, we found a critical error in our backend update pipeline just after the game went live.
"As a result of this, there was a significant risk that any update we made could affect the player saves and progression. We had to ensure that the test environment functioned as intended before we could proceed with publishing the update. We have no reason to want to delay updates for this long."
He added: "It was frustrating for both us and you, the players, that the launch went the way it did. We've taken the necessary steps to make sure that our updates will not cause more problems than they fix. Thank you for continuing to support as and playing Payday 3."
Starbreeze also revealed that two legacy heists from Payday 2 will be added to the game "very soon": Cook-Off and Murky Station. "Payday 3 is quite different from Payday 2 mechanics wise so bringing these heists to the third game means that we've had to make some changes to fit the new criminal dawn of heisting," Häll-Penninger said. "But don't worry, the changes aren't going to make the heist less recognisable."
The update also adds The Transporter skill line, which includes a number of upgrades tied to the carry and moving of bags including the ability to carry two at once. Starbreeze also promised changes to the Challenges system, so progression comes easier and is more obvious, but didn't make clear if this would release in the same legacy heist update.
Payday 3's launch was plagued with server issues that forced Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren to apologise. "We are so sorry that the infrastructure didn't hold up as expected, and although it's impossible to prepare for every scenario — we should be able to do better," he said.
Almost a month after its launch and Starbreeze apologised again for its lack of communication, and then just a week later said sorry one more time for not delivering the promised patch and again going quiet.
Starbreeze boasted Payday 3 had 3.1 million players as of October 2, but this number has dwindled, at least on Steam, as more players are currently playing Payday 2 than its sequel. According to SteamDB, Payday 3 has a 24-hour peak of just 1,415 compared to Payday 2's 18,502, despite the latter launching over a decade ago.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
