Payday 3 Technical Open Beta Review: “Best Played In Co-Op”

Payday 3 is the third instalment in the Payday franchise and is being developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Deep Silver.

It’s the sequel to the wildly popular and loved game Payday 2 which had a very long life span, something we can hopefully expect from Payday 3.

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Payday is a first-person shooter heist game where you choose from the 4 main characters, Dallas, Chains, Wolf and Hoxton.

There will be 2 new heisters joining them, Joy and Pearl, and just like the second game, we can most likely expect a lot more heisters to join them post-launch.

Payday 3 Technical Open Beta Review

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Technical Open Beta for Payday 3, which took place from September 8th to September 11th.

I spent a good amount of time playing the game and wanted to share my initial thoughts on whether or not it’s worth purchasing.

It’s important to note that the main goal of this beta test was to stress-test the servers.

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During the beta, players were able to level up to 20 and unlock a variety of different items to use. This was great because it allowed us to test out different equipment and approaches to the heist.

Most heist games only offer a choice between going in loud or going in silent but playing with actual friends instead of AI made the experience more enjoyable.

Lack of AI Control

One thing I did wish for was the ability to control your AI teammates and assign them to different tasks. This would make playing solo more engaging and dynamic. While I didn’t see this option in the game during the beta, it would be a great addition in the future.

I recently played a game with some friends where we attempted to complete the ’No Rest for the Wicked’ heist both loud and stealthily.

Our first attempt was to go loud which proved to be quite lengthy due to the time it took for the thermite to blow a hole in the floor. There were some interactive elements such as turning off the sprinklers but other than that, there wasn’t much variety.

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It would be great if there were more options to go loud like using a drill on the safe and surviving the fight, this is something that could possibly be in future heists. We also tried to complete the heist stealthily but unfortunately, we didn’t succeed.

However, it was still a lot of fun to split up and explore different parts of the small bank to gather items and progress further. This added more steps to the game and made it feel like we were truly part of the heist.

Controller Support

There are a few things in this test that weren’t up to standard but the main thing was controller support.

I mostly use controllers when playing PC games as it’s just what I’m used to with growing up as a console person but while playing Payday 3, the controller refused to recognise some of the buttons I was pressing.

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I’d sometimes try sprinting and I’d stop every now and again as it couldn’t recognise that I was pushing the button. This is something that I hope is fixed once the game launches next week as personally it’s a pain to use the keyboard to play the game.

Amazing Support & Issue Response

Another issue that I encountered was not being able to invite my friends and even when I eventually could, we still couldn’t join each other’s lobbies.

This is clearly a server-side issue and something that Starbreeze is making sure is fixed before the launch of the game.

Starbreeze has been very responsive to the issues that occurred during the test and provided updates at all times which was amazing to see as this proves that they’ll have good communication with the community.

Conclusion – Final Thoughts

Payday 3 is all about communication and coordination and I really do think that this is a game best played in co-op.

If you’ve got some friends who are interested in first-person shooters or heist games then bring them along and get invested into the Payday world.

If you unfortunately don’t have someone to join you in the heist then I’d save yourself from getting this game or wait for improvement on the AI.

This is a game that I can see myself getting on Day 1 and for people still thinking about it, it’ll be available on Xbox Game Pass Day 1, an easy way for everyone to access the game and try it out.

Verdict: Must Buy If You Have Friends To Join You

Payday 3 releases September 18 with early access and September 21 worldwide on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store