Payday 3

Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

Payday 3

Developers
	Overkill Software
	Starbreeze Studios
Publishers
	Deep Silver
Engines
	Unreal Engine 4
Planned	Unreal Engine 5
Release dates
Windows	September 21, 2023
Reception
Metacritic	68
OpenCritic	64
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, DLC, Subscription gaming service
Microtransactions	Currency, Cosmetic
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Shooter, Stealth
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, North America
Series	Payday

Payday
Payday: The Heist	2011
Payday 2	2013
Payday 3	2023

Warnings

This game requires a constant internet connection for all game modes.

Payday 3 is a singleplayer and multiplayer and stealth game in the Payday series. It is a sequel to Payday 2. Unlike the previous entries in the series, Payday 3 is the first game to be made in Unreal Engine with a planned upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 coming post-release.

Payday 3 was initially announced in May 2016 following Starbreeze's acquisition of the Payday IP from 505 Games, and officially began development in 2017. However, its progress was halted by studio financial struggles and controversy following the poor sales and reception of RAID: World War II and Overkill's The Walking Dead. Following the judicial reevaluation and restructuring of Starbreeze, the company announced in an October 2019 press release that Payday 3 was estimated to release between 2022-2023.
On March 19, 2021, Starbreeze, AB officially announced that Payday 3 will be co-published by Koch Media, alongside confirming several previous details such as the use of the Unreal Engine and a 2023 target release date. The release date of September 21st, 2023 was confirmed in the Gameplay Trailer shared on June 12th. While originally the game was meant to make use of the Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM, Starbreeze has announced on September 15th that the said DRM will no longer be used in the game..
Payday 3 released on Steam, Epic Games Store and Microsoft Store on September 21th, with the game also being included with Xbox Game Pass for PC and allowing early access for purchasers of the Silver and Gold editions of the game.

The game released to generally positive reception from critics and mixed reception from the general gaming audiences. Heavy criticism has been pointed to issues such as the lack of content and the requirement of the constant internet connection compared to Payday 2, with the latter causing widespread matchmaking issues.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Official User Suggestions website

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Collector's Edition only. Available in select countries only.
Epic Games Store		Silver Edition and Gold Edition also available.
		Gold Edition also available.
Green Man Gaming		Silver Edition and Gold Edition also available.
Humble Store		Silver Edition and Gold Edition also available.
Microsoft Store		Xbox Play Anywhere. Base game is included with Xbox Game Pass for PC. Silver Edition and Gold Edition also available.
Steam		Silver Edition and Gold Edition also available.

All versions require a Starbreeze Nebula account and a constant internet connection for all game modes.

Version differences

Pre-orders of the Standard Edition are granted the Trifecta Lootbag for free.

Silver Edition

Includes the base game, Special Bonus Content (Dark Sterling mask only) and the Silver Season Pass.

Gold Edition

Includes the base game, Special Bonus Content (Golden Slate gloves, Skull of Liberty and Dark Sterling masks) and the Gold Season Pass.

Collector's Edition

Retail only. Includes the base game, Special Bonus Content (Golden Slate gloves, Skull of Liberty, Dark Sterling and Solidius masks) and the Gold Season Pass.

Monetization

Type	Notes
DLC	The game is expected to feature extensive post-release DLC like the previous game.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.
Subscription gaming service	Available via Xbox Game Pass for PC.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Trifecta Lootbag	Included with pre-orders of the Standard Edition.
Dark Sterling Mask	Included with the Silver and Gold editions.
Skull of Liberty Mask	Included with the Gold Edition.
Gold State Gloves	Included with the Gold Edition.
Silver Season Pass	Included with the Silver Edition. Will include 2 heists, 2 weapon packs and 2 tailor packs.
Gold Season Pass	Included with the Gold Edition. Will include 4 heists, 4 weapon packs and 4 tailor packs.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
Cosmetic	PAYDAY Credits can be used only for purchasing cosmetic items.
Currency	PAYDAY Credits are a planned currency available only through real money purchases.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\PAYDAY3\Saved\Config\WindowsClient\GameUserSettings.ini
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1272080/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

Progress is tracked server-side.

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher		Linked to Starbreeze Nebula account.
Steam Cloud		Linked to Starbreeze Nebula account.
Xbox Cloud

Video

Video settings

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Resolutions between 1280x720 and 1920x1080 are selectable.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen			Borderless must be used. Hor+ gameplay with spanned HUD. Pillarboxed FMVs.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Adjustable from 50° to 90°. This game uses vertical FOV. See FOV Calculator for help.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Uses desktop resolution only.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Off (Low), 2x (Medium), 4x (High) and 8x (Ultra) available. Combined under the Textures setting.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		FXAA, TAA (Quality/Performance) and DLAA.
High-fidelity upscaling		DLSS 3.5, NIS, TAAU DLSS Frame Generation also supported.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Frame-cap up to 360 FPS available.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the engine page to force native HDR output, or the glossary page for other alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)
Color blind mode		Deuteranope, Protanope and Tritanope modes available. Strength can be adjusted.

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 5 page for more details.

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 4 page for more details.

Input

Gameplay settings

Keyboard bindings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		A Mouse Smoothing toggle is available.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping		2 pre-defined presets only. (Default, Legacy)
Controller sensitivity		Both axes' sensitivity can be adjusted.
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

• 

  Default controller preset

• 

  Legacy controller preset

Audio

Audio settings

UI settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, VO, SFX and Cinematics sliders.
Surround sound		Up to 7.0. Cutscenes and menus are 2.0 stereo.
Subtitles		Size can be adjusted.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Turkish

Network

Cross-play and cross-progression with Xbox One/Series and PlayStation 4/5 consoles is available.

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play		4

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues unresolved

Stuck on "Press Any Key to Start" screen in the Epic Games Store version

Reset personal settings in the EGL
Visit Epic Games' website. Go to the Apps tab next to Account on the top of the screen. Find PAYDAY 3 in the list, press Revoke Access button and save the changes. Launch PAYDAY 3 and accept the privacy settings pop up window.

Issues fixed

Shader compilation stutter

The game does not compile shaders at startup and will suffer from severe shader compilation related stutters during gameplay, this occurs every time a new effect is rendered and thus every time a new shader needs to be compiled.

This issue has been fixed as of the 1.1.1 update due to the said update adding a shader pre-compilation step on each launch.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11, 12	DX12 is default since update 1.1.1. DX11 can be manually chosen with the launch option "-dx11".

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX
Audio	OGG Vorbis, Wwise, XAudio2
Input	libScePad	v1.0.4.1
Multiplayer	Epic Online Services, Steamworks

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-9400F	Intel Core i7-9700K
System memory (RAM)	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	65 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB of VRAM
Other	Broadband Internet connection

A 64-bit operating system is required.