Published on: 02/01/2023
Payday 3 to launch in 2023, new Steam page established
Following the announcement of Payday 3’s release on New Year’s Eve, a Steam page for the cooperative heist-failure simulation game has been established.
The Steam’s page announcement read, “PAYDAY 3 is the much anticipated sequel to one of the most popular co-op shooters ever.
“Since its release, PAYDAY-players have been reveling in the thrill of a perfectly planned and executed heist. That’s what makes PAYDAY a high-octane, co-op FPS experience without equal.”
The game’s publisher has not announced the exact time window for the game’s release. The publisher, however, uploaded a brief teaser that introduced the new world the Payday gang would terrorize in the next installment.
In the 10th anniversary stream back in 2021, Payday developer Overkill Software already teased the plot line for the third part. The new installment will take place in New York as opposed to Washington D. C. like the previous part. Payday 3 director Erik Wonnevi said the team wanted to create a realistic environment that would drastically change once chaos happened.
Payday 3 brings back its four original characters, Dallas, Hoxton, Chains and Wolf. These four characters have retired but are forced back into crime by old connections. Unlike the previous series, Payday 3 introduces modern story components important to the game playing. Players will find new gadgets, high-tech surveillance and media commentary on the gang’s criminal conduct.
Before the third installment in the franchise, Payday 2 was released back in August 2013. Within a decade, the game went from achieving mass popularity to experiencing financial difficulty due to problems with its parent publisher, Starbreeze Studios.
Reports said that the steady stream from the Payday franchise kept Starbreeze afloat amid the challenges following the launch of Overkill’s The Walking Dead. At that time, its CFO was also convicted of insider trading.
The team halted Payday development in 2018 to restructure the organization. Following a successful restructuring, the game’s development resumed in October 2019. In 2020, the company managed to stabilize itself and announced a plan to lead the gaming industry again.
According to Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren, the company raised capital two times in 2020 to pay a large portion of its debt and develop Payday 3 in the following years. Sjögren also said Starbreeze had gone through all key steps in putting Starbreeze back on the map as an industry leader.”
Earlier than the company crisis in 2018, the Payday franchise also faced one of its more notable controversies in 2015. The developer added safes to Payday’s card drop system that might significantly increase the power of the weapons. A few weeks later, the game was once again under scrutiny when a newly released pack contained items other than cosmetics.
At that time, fans criticized Overkill for over-monetizing Payday. Starbreeze then acquired Payday in 2016 and promised fans that these incidents would not happen again.
Collectively, Payday 1 and 2 sold more than 9 million units as of 2014. The figure has likely grown since then, given that the game still has loyal players. The Payday announcement on Twitter also gained significant traction from fans.
Payday 3 uses Unreal Engine
Over the years, the developer has offered glimpses of improvements that players will encounter in Payday 3. In 2020, Overkill announced that Payday 3 would utilize Unreal Engine (UE) — a 3D graphics game engine produced by Epic Games.
The introduction of UE in Payday guarantees that players will experience more immersive game-playing. It allows players to access games with ease because the character movements render smoothly compared to games that do not use UE technology.
Analysts have also predicted that Payday 3 will likely be a fully live-service game where players need to accumulate battle passes to go to the next level.
