Payday 3 test – Evribádibíkúldísizáráböri

Need money, fast and a lot? Rob a bank! Okay, fortunately, in reality, this rarely and seriously comes to mind, but the idea, and the concept of bank robbery in general, has been in the public consciousness for generations and generations. Especially since the film industry has existed, in which all kinds of characters have robbed banks a million plus times. And then we get to XX. towards the end of the 20th century, when the video game industry gradually swells to such an extent that it easily overtakes the film industry, and bank robberies also become a topic. It would be difficult to list how many games we had the opportunity to rob a bank, so I will suddenly mention only a few. We can remember the prologue of the campaign of Grand Theft Auto V, which was specifically a bank robbery, but later in the game we had the opportunity to do something similar. Actually, the Red Dead Redemption games can also be bought here, as well as two episodes of Kane & Lynch at the time. And of course Payday, Overkill Software’s debut series in 2011!

The first part of this was even included in the title, considering that it was released under the title Payday: The Heist twelve years ago. The game was based on a fairly simple system: together with our friends, we could rob a bank in cooperative mode, then the police came, and the whole thing was drowned in a bloody shootout. It was a lot of fun. It’s so good that two years later, in the summer of 2013, the sequel came out. These two games were still made by Overkill Software, although they were acquired by Starbreeze along the way. Payday 2 was an even bigger success than its predecessor, in fact, ten years later, many people still play it every day. There was a time when a quarter of a million active players drilled the virtual safes at the same time, but even today the number of daily players can easily be put at 40 thousand. But ten years is a long time, and the franchise is ripe for a trilogy. Especially in light of the fact that Payday 3 was originally announced back in 2016, but somehow it took much longer to make the game compared to the previous two parts.

But now it’s here, it’s arrived. And let’s quickly ignore why, after at least seven years of development, it feels like we’re playing a remake, remaster or an updated, slightly polished version of the second part… Payday 3 didn’t stray too far from the basic concept. The focus is still on cooperative robberies. We also get some kind of background story, according to which the original band, i.e. Dallas, Hoxton, Wolf and Chains, had a good time back then and were absorbed nicely in order to enjoy the pleasures that can be bought with many, many stolen dollars. Yes, but by now someone has screwed up the whole bag very badly, and they’ve all lost their last penny. What can a bank robber do in such an awkward situation? He digs out the slightly dusty, slightly scratched, but still dirty stylish clown mask, golden gloves and a decent suit from the depths of the wardrobe, then heads to the nearest bank. Of course, they don’t apply for a loan, they go to rob. Together again.

In terms of gameplay, all of this provides exactly what could be expected in advance. Disguising yourself as one of the four bank robbers, you and your friends can have the party of the century here or there, or even there. There are classic bank robberies, van hijackings, container break-ins and other delicacies that individually promise hundreds of thousands of dollars in loot. Fortunately, the offer is quite varied, as the destinations include a casino, a jewelry store, an art gallery and even a penthouse on top of a skyscraper. And what’s best: it’s mostly up to us how to play the given robbery. We can strive for complete discretion, we can trick guards and security systems, we can hack cameras, we can break locks. If we are sufficiently careful, skillful and endlessly patient, we can even rob without the dog literally noticing. Needless to say, this is the hardest road, where it’s annoyingly easy to slip on a banana peel. And sure enough, at this point, the gameplay automatically goes to the other extreme: the clown masks are put on, we get the muzzles, and amid loud screams, we start cleaning the place as quickly as possible, because it’s only a matter of minutes, and the area will be covered by cops.

The range of police officers is quite large, both in terms of quantity and variations. After the simple security guards, field patrols come, but gradually the action starts to get rougher, and gendarmes with shields, rifles, stun guns, grenade launchers, machine guns and other gendarmes appear as well. Of course, the most annoying of all is the Sam Fisher-looking ninja warrior who turns off the lights with two spinning kicks. Unfortunately, the game only believes in quantity, not quality: AI-controlled policemen don’t have as much brains as zombies in any undead game. They scurry around the track as if they’ve been ripped off, they stop right in front of us without thinking, which can easily turn into a comical firefight like the one here. By the way, artificial unintelligence is also typical of civilians. In the bank, for example, I sneaked into an office, where unfortunately I ran into a secretary and a clerk who was lying on a sofa and pressing his phone. I’ll tell you, I fell down, quickly grabbed the stick and already tied the woman in the corner. In the meantime, the heroic knight clerk… continued to press the phone carelessly…

The AI ​​isn’t the only problem with the game. There is a much bigger problem with stability. It happened several times that it was very difficult to join an online party. There have been times when the game threw people out on the fly. Reading online reviews, you can find a million such stories, I myself have run into a few similar ones, but overall, it is far from as frequent as one would think based on what was written. At the same time, the game, although it looks pretty good overall and generally runs nicely, is very prone to stuttering. Which is not exactly the most refreshing experience in the middle of an endlessly irrational online firefight, when I’m being shot at from all directions.

With that said, Payday 3 wasn’t a bad game. Or rather, the basics are good, but it feels more like early access than a full release. And here we can go back to the beginning of my report, where I noted that the creators worked on it for at least seven years. I don’t think the content, which many also complain about, is insufficient. The entire menu, character development, weapon development and upgradeability have a bit of a Call of Duty flavor, but the missions are varied and challenging. It still has plenty of room for improvement, and I’m not surprised that many people are still not switching over to it from the second part. Currently, the active player bases of the two games are roughly the same, but remember that there are ten years between the two titles. I wouldn’t dare to bet a large sum on the fact that tens of thousands will still be playing Payday 3 in ten years…

The test copy was provided by the domestic distributor of the game, Magnew Games.