The mismanagement of the Payday series

Who knew that the developers and owners behind a clown heisting series would turn out to be the real clowns?

I hold Payday 1 and 2 near and dear to my heart. I spent a rediculous amount of time playing them when I was in High School. But the way the series was handled by the people who own them leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Lets talk about why.

What went well

Before we can delve into the bad, I want to talk about the good. Payday The Heist was well recieved. It didn't try to be anything more then it was which is a Heat inspired heisting game. It had it's rediculous moments but it never claimed to be realistic. However, this page isn't really about Payday The Heist.

Payday 2 changed things up a bit. It has a gameplay loop that wasn't really able to be found in any other game from it's time. It's higher difficulties presented an intense wave based shooter experience. It upped the rediculousness of the last game tenfold leaving it's comedy to feel a bit like Saints Row at times. The selection of weapons is next to unmatched compared to other fps games. Want to heist with a Makarov handgun? Go ahead commrad. Want to use an AR15 type rifle? Customize it to your hearts content and get out there. Want to heist with a Minigun or explosive launchers? There are a few different options, have at it. Want to use a shotgun with dragons breath or HE shells? You can do just that. Want to use a bow and arrow? Nobodys stopping you. You get the idea. If it's a weapon, theres a good chance that Payday 2 will let you use it.

The music system is setup to have different music play contextually. If you are sneaking around or the heist hasn't started yet, you get the silent version of the song. If you are going loud, the loud version gets built up to then starts playing. If you are inbetween waves of cops, the music goes into a lul and picks back up when the next wave starts. There is also a shitton of music to choose from. There is something here for everyone. And even if there isn't something for you, you can add your own custom music via mods. If you really don't want in game music you can also disable it.

The 4 player cooperative nature of the game leads to a fun experience with friends and can even teach you all how to work together effeciently. Imagine Left 4 Dead but instead of trying to survive a zombie apocolypse, you are trying to rob banks, casinos, mafias, cartels, private militaries, music venues, and many others. If you don't like the idea of that, there is also other "heists" to play like ones where you make meth while fending off cops and fighting to survive in dream like areas. The game is fun. But if this is the case then why am I saying it was mismanaged?

DLC

Behind every AAA game, there is a AAA company. One that seeks money. Payday 2 was never intended to be a live service game. There are no servers to maintain, it uses p2p. The first 3 DLC was free. After that point, most DLCs started to cost money. I hear you say "Thats fair right? The devs and company have to earn money in order to keep working on the game right?" Sure, whatever. The game was pretty lacking in content at this point. It would have been nice already have these in the game at launch or added for free given that the game itself costs money too but I see your point. At least up until 2014. The last DLC containing heists or weapons to be released for the 360 and PS3 was the second gage weapon pack. After this point there was no new content being added to these ports. I still remember my friends in highschool being very upset about this. Another important thing to note: There was 7 DLCs that didn't make it onto these ports. 4 of those DLCs missed contained heists which means not even a year after these ports released they were already being neglected.

In 2015 the game rereleased on xbox one and ps4. These ports also became neglected in 2017, this time managing to stay relevant for about 2 and a half years. In 2018 a port to the switch was released and on day 1 it was outdated and never had any new DLC. Overkill just outright gave up and didn't do anything for xbox series x/s and ps5.

In 2017 Overkill announced that they would be removing the DLC from the steam store and in place add Payday 2: Ultimate Edition. This edition had all the DLC content up until that point and had the promise of all future DLC for free. The community loved this as did I. Before I refused to buy any DLC on principle, all of a sudden it became an option to play the extra content locked behind the DLC cost. Unfortunatly, this too became neglected. In 2019 the new CEO of starbreeze announced that company was about to go bankrupt and that they were going to start selling DLC again. Ultimate Edition was renamed to Legacy Collection and stopped recieving the new DLC for free. Starbreeze went back on their promise and obligations.

On Steam right now in 2/13/2026, if you want to buy the game and all the DLC you have to be willing to dish out $253.26 before tax. "Oh but the Infamous Collection exists! Thats way cheaper" Sure. It is. It brings it down to a measly $122.88. Again, just to play the content thats already within the game files without purchasing the DLC. Speaking of all this content being within the game files...

Spaghetti Code

This game has been actively recieving new code added to it since it's release in 2013. Any game developer worth their salt will be able to tell you that this creates certain issues. In the case of Payday 2 it is doubly so. If not, triply. There is game mechanics within the code that have not been functional for a decade or longer thanks to newer code fighting with it for priority. Don't believe me? Launch the PS3 or 360 version of the game and see just how different NPCs behave, how skill trees work, how weapons work, etc.

The game engine that Payday 2 runs on is called the Diesel engine. It was originally made for a racing game from 2001. The game is called Ballistics if you want to look it up. Despite this, all the vehicles in Payday 2 drive like shit. This foundation isn't the most stable as you can imagine. The game's graphics were dated even for the time (I never really cared all too much but critics did) and it is very buggy. It is also prone to crashes. Not great when you have to go through 40+ minute heists. If the host crashes, everyone gets kicked back to the main menu.

Payday 3

Payday 3 had so much potential. It plus Overkill/Starbreeze's money problems were the reason Payday 2 DLC started back up. The game had pretty negative reception upon it's launch mostly due to trying to be different and more realistic. In concept, a more realistic heisting game sounds fun. Payday up until this point was never about realism which left a lot of the community feeling burned. Literally all they had to do in order for Payday 3 to succeed was to take what worked well within Payday The Heist and Payday 2, then shove it into a more modern game engine. Now since Payday 3 failed, they have returned to developing Payday 2 DLC while neglecting Payday 3.

Closing

This game series deserved better. Overkill/Starbreeze have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. I miss Payday so much ;-;