Following a disastrous launch which led to Payday 3 nosediving to a Mostly Negative rating on Steam, developer Starbreeze has promised over 200 quality-of-life changes this month, as well as further improvements scheduled in a series of patches set to release throughout the rest of the year.
An update on the developer’s website addresses fixes made in the last week to help stabilise Payday 3’s matchmaking, as well as laying out a roadmap for the next few months. It says that the game’s matching “has been stable and has had good performance after the completed maintenance,” which took place on September 26 and September 29.
Starbreeze said it’ll now “intensify the commercial activities around Payday 3, after partially pausing these during the previous week,” though it’s unclear whether they’re referring to the game’s marketing or upcoming implementation of Payday Credits, the game’s way of shoehorning in microtransactions. On top of this, an update happening early this month is set to implement “200+ QoL improvements for all platforms,” though the developer has neglected to offer up any specific examples yet.
Two more scheduled updates will see further quality-of-life changes as well as “new content and new functionality,” before the game’s first DLC Syntax Error launches sometime in Winter. There’ll also be some platform-specific updates sprinkled in-between, though Starbreeze didn’t explicitly mention any release dates for those.
In the update post, CEO Tobias Sjögren wrote: “First and foremost, I would like to thank our players for the patience they have shown us. Our community is the engine that drives both our games and our company forward. I don’t really need to repeat that this was not the start we wanted, but at the same time, our business model is a marathon and not a sprint and we will tirelessly continue to build Payday 3 bigger and better to develop the greatest possible value for our players.”
It’s been a mighty rocky start for Payday 3 since it launched last week. Its always-online requirement has left a sour taste in many players’ mouths, and the frequent server crashes throughout its launch left fans flooding to Steam to vent their frustrations in the reviews. The game currently sits at a 37% rating, planting it firmly in the top 50 worst-rated games on the platform.
Our own Payday 3 review saw it receive 67 from Tyler Colp, who found an FPS with potential buried in a slog of a grind. “Payday 3 could be one of the slickest co-op shooters around, but it’s mired by a grindy progression system and its always-online nature. It needs some time to cook before it’s worth digging in.”
