Even though we’ve known aboutPayday 3since 2016, Starbreeze has remained tight-lipped about the game, with its official reveal only kicking off at the start of this year. Despite fans' fears for the game, my own worries melted away after a hands-on session with the game at the Starbreeze offices in Stockholm.
After my play session (which you may check out here), I sat down with Payday 3’s producer, Andreas Häll-Penninger, and series brand manager/community head Almir Listo to discuss what I’d played and finally get a chance to talk about the long-awaited third game in the series. And about John Wick, of course.
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As a lapsed player who has watched thePaydaycommunity grow into one of gaming’s most hardcore groups, I was instantly curious to see if Listo and Häll-Penninger believe Payday 3 is a good starting point for newcomers, or if the focus was on keeping the old players around.
“I think Payday 3 serves as the perfect starting point if you’ve never been into Payday before,” Listo tells me. “That’s one of the main reasons we wanted to create a trilogy, to allow a new generation of heisters to emerge”.
Listo and Häll-Penninger are well aware of how passionate the Payday community is, but while new players are being welcomed in with open arms, it’s clear that the team has a lot of love and respect for how its community has grown over the years.
“Even though it is a very large and intense community, they are very forgiving and welcoming,” Listo says. “I’ve seen that weekly when I stream with the fans. They are so kind to each other and welcoming, that’s the kind of culture you have to build up over time. I spent the better part of the last decade doing that.”
Thankfully, this time around, keeping a community together is going to be much easier than it was for Payday 2. The console versions of Payday 2 infamously fell behind on updates and new content, essentially meaning the PC release is the only way to play Payday as it’s meant to be experienced.
That wouldn’t fly nowadays, but Listo confirms that the third instalment is “as playable on consoles as it is on PC” and notes that the team has never been in a better position to grow its community than it is now. Häll-Penninger also suggests Starbreeze’s in-house engine might have been one of the main reasons for the lack of parity.
“From a development perspective, moving from the Diesel engine to Unreal has helped a lot in terms of developing for console,” Häll-Penninger says. “Since the beginning of development, for every internal milestone, we ensure that there is parity between them and that the quality is the same. It’s been a strategy from the start.”
One of the big benefits of parity between all platforms is that console players are finally going to get to experience all of Payday’s iconic crossovers. While PC players have been having fun with John Wick, Scarface, and uh, Goat Simulator collaborations for years now, a lot of that content never made it to PlayStation and Xbox. It’s a shame in the case of John Wick, maybe less so for the h3h3 stuff.
Since nothing has been confirmed about whether these old crossovers are going to be making a comeback for Payday 3 at any point, I decided to look to the future and ask Listo and Häll- Penninger what their dream crossovers would be.
One suggestion that comes up straight away is another leap into the John Wick universe, this time with a heist taking place in the Continental, something that Listo seems fairly confident could happen thanks to Starbreeze’s relationship with Lionsgate. As exciting as that would be, it’s Listo’s other suggestions that get the mind racing.
“I have two ones that I jump to straight away - John McClane from Die Hard so (Hans Gruber) can say ‘it’s John McClane, shoot the glass!’ in Nakatomi Plaza,” Listo tells me, pulling off a remarkable Alan Rickman impression. “And then, Batman, of course. Imagine an ominous light, then Batman jumps down through the glass, you hear the music and then he just fucks you up.”
The possibility of Batman is echoed by Häll-Penninger, who suggests that a whole season taking place in Gotham City where the gang has to contend with just Batman instead of Cloakers, Bulldozers, and Tazers would be a fun idea. I suggested that this should just be its own game entirely, so if that ends up happening you all have me to thank.
Batman and Die Hard might just be hopes and dreams for now, but talking to Listo and Häll-Penninger did make it clear that the team has put a lot more effort this time around into ensuring that the Payday community can be one united front, whether you’re playing for the first time on consoles or you’re a PC-playing Payday pro.
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