➤ Payday 3, the review of the new chapter of the Starbreeze detective novel 🕹

Ten years after the release of the second episode, the Starbreeze Studios gang is back in action for a new series of hits: the Payday 3 review.

When talking about heist games, it is inevitable to mention Payday: the Starbreeze Studios series, which in particular with the second episode of 2013 was a great success, knew how to elevate this niche subgenre, consolidating a fascinating mix of cooperative mechanics that tries to balance the stealthy soul typical of this type of experience with the frenetic shootouts that come to life as soon as something goes wrong.

It seemed that the very long post-launch support of Payday 2, with its thirty downloadable contents, had fully expressed the potential of an intellectual property that, instead, apparently, is ready to give its opinion again and explore possible new paths, in the path. A winding path that leads a novice street criminal to become an expert thief and millionaire.

Ten years after the last time, has Starbreeze's new coup been successful? Don't you dare call the police: the answer is hostage to ours Payday Review 3.

History and structure: between devices and content

Payday 3, the review of the new chapter of the Starbreeze detective novel — Payday 3, one of the static scenes that tell the story of the game

Let's start by saying that we are inevitably disappointed by the history of Payday 3 and above all because of the way in which it is told, through banal sequences of works of art spoken in English and subtitled in Spanish. The narrative device of the secret organization threatening the original gang and forcing them back into action has largely been seen before, but it is above all the staging that is surprising, considering that in the past the series even a live trailer was allowed. with Giancarlo Esposito.

In short, there was undoubtedly the possibility of investing more in this sense, and it would have been wise to use a very economical comic style instead of focusing especially on the content, which is however missing for the moment: Payday 3 includes only eight missions at launch, and although these figures are justified by a reduced sales price (€39,99, which goes to zero if you are an Xbox Game Pass subscriber), new ones will arrive. Paid content will inevitably arrive over time, as happened with the second chapter, so it was reasonable to expect a richer structure.

The way the resulting stages are presented is also disconcerting. everything immediately accessible (perhaps to avoid fragmenting the user immediately, despite cross-play), while only the banal static intermission scenes that we have already mentioned are blocked, which become visible only after completing the sequence of missions that precede them. In our opinion, exactly the opposite should have happened, to give us a minimum of initial progression beyond the simple tutorial.

Talking about progression, in the days after its release, Payday 3 received many negative reviews on Steam precisely due to the decisions made by the developers in this regard. Beyond the fact of being able to successfully complete the eight planes in a few hours, which only tells part of the story given the wide margin of replayability intrinsic to the experience, in fact an objective system has been inserted that determines our progress. real in the game.

Therefore, instead of leaving Payday 2's money and experience point approach intact, the guys at Starbreeze thought it would be more interesting to tie our growth, as well as the ability to access new weapons and equipment, to the completion of a long series of challenges. It is true that many of them fall within the natural loop of the game, asking us, for example, to eliminate a certain number of enemies (police, for the record) and carry out heists at specific difficulty levels, but others involve actions that can potentially ruin the cooperative experience of the game.

As if the well-known communication difficulties that usually occur in the context of a multiplayer session with complete strangers, reluctant to speak and coordinate with others (a fundamental aspect when trying to complete a heist cleanly and silently), were not enough. , you actually find yourself witnessing solitary behaviors seemingly lacking logic, but that in reality pursue the achievement of specific objectives.

Missions, characters, equipment, skills.

While waiting for Starbreeze to resolve the issue by reviewing the mechanisms that regulate progression in Payday 3, something that we have no doubt will happen given the numerous controversies already raised in a few days, let's try to understand what the eight consist of. missions available in the new episode, but also the characters that make up the squad, the changes made to the equipment and the unlockable skills.

In terms of variety there is little to complain about.: The impacts range from a small bank to a large bank, from the assault on an armored vehicle immediately dedicated to the action to the inevitable jewelry store that will be robbed, from a nightclub full of neon lights and drugs to an art gallery full of precious works to be identified and stolen, finally passing through a truck warehouse with too many secrets and a luxury villa full of guards to monitor it.

As is tradition in the series, we will be given the opportunity to complete tasks the way we prefer, so they proceed cautiously and silently, stealing plates, neutralizing security agents, turning off cameras (perhaps with a well-aimed punch) and accessing specific terminals; or, if someone discovers us, wear the required masks and proceed with guns blazing while we wait for the police to arrive.

The two different approaches build thevery great replayability of Payday 3, and in this sense it is inevitable to notice a greater number of facets and possibilities compared to what was seen in the second chapter ten years ago. Of course, the ideal scenario would be to play with three friends, all equipped with headphones and microphone (but at the moment, ironically, voice chat is not supported), because it is clear that in any other context human error will be greater. It is likely that at some point we will be forced to run and fight.

As announced, in the new episode i characters Those who make up the roster have seen the arrival of some new additions, specifically the hacker Joy and the former spy Pearl, who join old acquaintances such as Wolf, Dallas, Chains and Hoxton. The problem is that we have not found real differences between one protagonist and another that go beyond the aesthetic aspect, which can be customized by purchasing masks, clothing and accessories.

They are more than anything else equipment and skills to differentiate our builds, and although the first is substantially limited by the progression system that we have already talked about, although it gives us access to very important modifications for our weapons, the second defines the character's capabilities within different routes, for example improving offensive effectiveness and resistance or making it capable of inhibiting security systems.

Gameplay: between the present and the past

There was definitely a lot of wood in the game from the first two episodes of Payday, and from this point of view the improvements made by Starbreeze are evident, especially with regard to the movement system once the mask is on. In fact, we will be able to move more quickly, without the weight of the protections we wear, and overcome certain obstacles while running or perform useful and spectacular slides.

An interactive cover system has not been implemented, we imagine so as not to facilitate the shootings too much, while the shooting has maintained those particularities that have always distinguished it, with a high incidence of recoil, short magazines and ammunition in general, which will require precise tactics (in addition to the use of special bonuses such as bullet bags) to not run out of weapons. just when police action becomes more intense.

Compared to the past, it is now possible to perform some useful additional actions even in the stealth phase, such as stealing cards and keys from the guards, who will not tend to attack us at the slightest suspicion, but will adopt more plausible behaviors, while in the action phase, in addition to tying up the hostages (this time without worrying about the number of zip ties we have), we can use them as human shields in shootouts or, above all, free them in the negotiation phase. to buy time before the police arrive.

The latter can have more complex strategies, which aim to take us by surprise instead of relying solely on frontal charges in the zombie style of Left 4 Dead, and boast of new types of agents, like the leatherheads with their martial arts or the taser-equipped "zappers", who in some cases behave like special enemies, landing us and causing us damage until one of our companions comes to our aid.

In addition to the obvious improvements, which in many ways represent the minimum that was reasonable to expect ten years after the last episode, Payday 3 unfortunately presents some problems that the series seems to have great difficulty in solving, starting with the good amount of errors that you will encounter during missions and that, in some cases, can even frustratingly compromise the progress made up to that point.

Then there is the old question ofAI, obviously understood as behavioral routines, which have been reinforced but only to a certain point, also because in a stealth experience it is clear that having to deal with guards who are too cunning or with realistic behavior (at the first concrete suspicion one closes and everyone at home) would limit the gameplay too much. The truth is that at this level the differences with Payday 2 become much smaller and the deja-vu effect is inevitable.

Technical implementation: an open work?

It is strange to think that Payday 3 currently uses Unreal Engine 4 but will be updated to Unreal Engine 5 during the course of work, given that there is a great distance between the two engines and it is clear that in the transition the Starbreeze title could change its face, especially when it comes to effects. This, however, does not affect the mix of ups and downs that the game presented with in its debut.

In general the sets seem well made, quite spacious (although the limits of the stage are always around the corner, literally), decorated with a certain taste and well lit on the exteriors, but if you look at them in detail you can see the use. of generic and dated assets, for example with regard to furniture, computers and various devices. The same goes for the polygonal models of the NPCs and, above all, their animations, which suggest anything but recent production.

The behaviour Sonoro You can count on intense and convincing performances, of excellent quality, and a selection of solid, realistic and high-impact audio effects during the most frenetic phases of the experience, when the police burst in and you have to face them with all weapons . The musical commentary behaves accordingly, evading during stealth sequences and then starting with insistent beats when the cover is revealed.

Performance on PC is good, but can certainly be improved, if we consider what actually moves on the screen in terms of number of polygons and technologies used. With an RTX 4070 we were able to play at 2160p and with all the settings at maximum, but activating the DLSS and keeping it in the "balanced" preset to avoid annoying stutters and noticeable drops in the most frenetic situations, which are practically the norm for the day of pay.

PC system requirements

Test setup

Processor: Intel Core i5 13500
Video card: NVIDIA RTX 4070
Memory: 32GB RAM
Storage: SATA 3 SSD
Operating system: Windows 11

Minimum requirements

Processor: Intel Core i5 9400F
Video card: NVIDIA GTX 1650
Memory: 16GB RAM
Storage: 65 GB of space required
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit

Recommended requirements

Processor: Intel Core i7 9700K
Video card: NVIDIA GTX 1080
Memory: 16GB RAM
Storage: 65 GB of space required
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit

Conclusions

Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store Price 39,99 € Holygamerz.com 7.5 Readers (40) 6.8 your vote

Payday 3 takes up and updates the formula that made the Starbreeze heist game famous, although not always making acceptable decisions. The decision to bring the game to stores at a reduced price and include it in the Xbox Game Pass catalog from day one inevitably influenced the amount of content available at launch, which was lower than expected, while the issue of the system Progression will need to be addressed as soon as possible. However, there is no doubt that the system, although still very much tied to the past, has its own purpose and potential that will likely be fully expressed in the coming months. After all, to achieve a successful hit, patience is needed.