Payday 3 takes place after the ending of Payday 2 where the Payday Gang went separate ways and left their criminal lives, but being double-crossed and losing all of their money causes the Payday Gang to return to the life of crime.[1] The original crew of characters originating from Payday: The Heist ("Dallas", "Chains", "Wolf", and "Hoxton") and 2 other heisters, one returning from Payday 2 ("Joy"), and one new ("Pearl"), appear as additional characters. The game takes place mainly in New York.[1][2] From teaser images, one of the missions will take place at the "Gold & Sharke Incorporated" bank.[2]Payday 3 takes place in the 2020s, intended to add more depth to the Payday Gang's crimes with game-changing differences like more advanced surveillance or the rise of cryptocurrency.[1][2]
Developer Starbreeze Studios announced in May 2016 that Payday 3 was in development at Overkill Software, after Starbreeze acquired the rights to the intellectual property from 505 Games for around US$30 million.[3] In March 2021, Plaion committed to pay €50 million to assist in the game's development and marketing, including more than 18 months of post-launch support using the games as a service model.[4]Payday 3 was developed using Unreal Engine 4, but will be upgraded to use Unreal Engine 5 post launch.[2][5] On January 1, 2023, a teaser trailer titled A New Criminal Dawn was released, revealing its logo. Console versions also will be the same version as the game on PC platforms, unlike its predecessor. Overkill states that this is due to the game being created using the Unreal Engine.[6] In June, Overkill announced that the game would release on September 18, 2023, for pre-orders of the Silver and Gold editions, while the standard edition would release on September 21.[7]
Vikki Blake, writing for Eurogamer, called it "a shallow shooter that doesn't offer anywhere near enough bang for your ill-gotten buck."[12] Travis Northup, writing for IGN, wrote that "Payday 3's cooperative heists are off to a strong start, even if the vault is a bit bare at the moment."[13] Giovanni Colantonio, in a review for Digital Trends, said that "Payday 3 doesn't shake up its predecessor's formula much, but a strong batch of initial heists sets the live service shooter up for success."[11]
Upon launch, the game's servers failed due to the massive influx of players, making the game almost unplayable, since the game is online-only. These outages have lasted for days.[14][15] Starbreeze announced that the game had attracted more than 1.3 million players at launch.[16]
Payday 3 became the fifth and the sixth best-selling video game in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively in September 2023.[17][18]
One month after launch, the player base on Steam plummeted, with Payday 2 having 10 times more concurrent players than Payday 3.[19]
In November 2023, Embracer Group (owner of Deep Silver) said that Payday 3 had failed to meet their sales expectations.[20]
In February 2024, Starbreeze said that the game's sales and player activity were way below expectations.[21][22] In March 2024, Starbreeze fired CEO Tobias Sjögren and replaced him with Juergen Goeldner as interim CEO.[23]
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