Payday 3‘s launch issues have been so severe that Starbreeze is considering removing its controversial always-online requirement.
Payday 3, which launched for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on September 21, became a trending topic on social media sites like X for sporadic server connections, crashes, persistent matchmaking issues and incorrect versions of the game being playable on PS5.
Given that it had been a decade since Payday 2, these problems irked players who had been awaiting the third game with a lot of anticipation. Starbreeze’s CEO said that the team would “work tirelessly” to ensure that Payday 3 would meet their expectations once more following these unfortunate incidents.
In an official statement, the developer explained that “matchmaking software encountered an unforeseen error” and that this overloaded the third-party matchmaking partner that handled the game.
It reiterated that this issue did not manifest in either the technical beta or early access periods for Payday 3 and that the team is dedicated to resolving it in the immediate.
“In the short-term, this means Starbreeze’ focus is to ensure the player experience. In the long-term, this means evaluating a new partner for matchmaking services and making Payday 3 less dependent on online services,” it said.
CEO Tobias Sjögren clarified the latter half of that statement in a post to X. “Team is looking at possibility to add some sort of offline mode,” he said.
One of the creators of Payday, Ulf Andersson, had said that Payday 3 might be a bit too similar to its predecessor.
“They’re sticking really close to the original concept,” replied Andersson in an interview with NME. “It’s like somebody has your playbook now, but like…your old playbook.”
In other gaming news, the majority of voting SAG-AFTRA members are in favour of a strike against publishers and companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games and more should subsequent negotiations fail.
