Despite Troubles, Payday 3’s Launch Still “Exceeded” Dev Expectations

Payday 3 had gathered quite the anticipations to its name prior to its launch, but due to the servers misfiring at the time of release, the title became practically unplayable, leaving players dumbfounded and utterly helpless. As subsequent reviews of the online-only first-person shooter poured in, the game found itself plummeting in terms of concurrent players. Despite this, it’s sold well according to Starbreeze.

Addressing folks in its January-September 2023 interim report, Starbreeze Studios — the developer — has first confirmed that Payday 3 has broken even, meaning that it’s gained back the money spent on making it. Next, calling the launch of Payday 3 a “milestone,” the studio says that the amount of interest players took in the title exceeded its expectations, not to mention the game’s sales figures following suit. 

On September 21st Payday 3 was finally launched, a milestone for Starbreeze and a reason for the team to be proud and celebrate. Both interest in the game and initial sales exceeded our expectations, it was clear that many people have been waiting a long time to play PAYDAY 3. Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that the infrastructure on which the game rests was not holding up – this despite extensive internal and external tests carried out leading up to launch. The consequence is that sales after the period are somewhat lower, but we are convinced that what we have in store will increase sales over time.” 

Elsewhere, the report notes that the next step for the developing team is to emphasize Payday 3’s live service element. The game is set to receive features and additions requested straight from the otherwise vibrant Payday 3 community as soon as some of its existential issues, such as matchmaking and consistent crashing, are thoroughly resolved. 

With the launch completed, PAYDAY 3 now enters its next phase; live service. This means that the team focuses on continued development of both new features as well as improvements requested by our players, and frequent deliveries of new content.”

Shortly after launch, Starbreeze Studios pushed out a developer update on its official site, detailing the devised game plan that the developer intends to follow throughout 2023 in an attempt to fine-tune Payday 3. It was high time to address the audience back then, given how the title first accumulated over 3.1 million unique players, and then went on to lose over 90% of its concurrent players on Steam. 

Other Content to Check Out: 

• Payday 3’s First Major Patch Gets Delayed To Mid-October
• Payday 3 Announces That Denuvo Will No Longer Be Part Of The Game
• Payday 3’s Concurrent Steam Players Are Lower Than Payday 2

Payday 3 came out on September 21, 2023, for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. eXputer reviewed the game and rated it 2/5, calling out its always-online nature, some crucial quality-of-life features that are missing, and lack of voice chat.