PAYDAY 3 Vision Stream Recap – October 2

On October 2, Starbreeze hosted a special PAYDAY 3 Vision Stream, where the new PAYDAY General Manager Jonas, joined Elisabeth to walk through the studio’s long-term plans for the game.

The conversation focused on the general pillars around bringing PAYDAY back to the forefront of the heisting world — where it belongs! Bear in mind that this is not a roadmap, we’re still doing a ton of planning, we’ll share more when we’ve put pen to paper!

Setting the Stage

Jonas recently joined Starbreeze as General Manager for PAYDAY, bringing both technical and player-focused experience. With a background in engineering and game development, he emphasized that his perspective is hands-on. His job will be to drive the vision for the game, set the budget so all the teams can do their work as trouble free as possible.

So as to not keep you waiting any longer, Starbreeze is more than doubling the team size for PAYDAY. The larger team will let us not only create new content, but let us fix long-standing issues and push toward the game’s full potential.

Offline Mode

The work we put into offline mode ultimately proved that it’s not a feasible route for us. We believe we can do more good by focusing on making the online experience excel instead. Coupled with player-friendly online functionality such as instant balancing we are exploring solutions to address community concerns about the online experience.

Other online-experience improvements mentioned are:

• We’re working on removing the mandatory account system.
• Peer-to-peer hosting to give players control over how they host the game.

Step 0: Technology and Team Growth

Before getting into gameplay steps, Jonas outlined the foundation being built:

• Doubling the team size – expanding capacity to both deliver new content and address existing issues with the quality they deserve.
• Tech investment – upgrading the engine and backend systems.
  • Upgrading to Unreal 5 allows more ambitious features, such as more meaningful heist randomization, and powerful tools to make our work faster and easier.
  • Backend upgrades mean live balancing, instant server-side updates, and the ability to surprise players with events or challenges without requiring full client patches.

This foundation is key for everything that follows.

Step 1: Making PAYDAY Feel Great to Play

The first focus is tightening the fundamentals:

• Smooth, responsive gameplay – reducing friction so every heist feels rewarding, win or lose. This including specific heist objectives, a new skill system and more.
• Fixes and quality-of-life improvements – the less flashy but essential work.
• Onboarding improvements – ensuring new players have an easier entry point and keep playing, without losing challenge for veterans.
• Examples already underway – removal of the mandatory account system, and improved VoIP communication.

Step 2: Always a Reason to Log In

Good progression and replayability are core pillars of the PAYDAY experience. Currently, both of those pillars are not where we want them. We want players to be motivated and excited to start the game every day, and feel like they’re making meaningful progress towards their next milestone:

• Progression loops that reward mastery of different builds.
• Missions and quests that evolve over time.
• Visible rewards that reflect each player’s journey.
• Stronger chase-elements to keep the game engaging after core leveling.
• We want to make these improvements together with you. To enable that, we’re creating a way for the community to provide direct input via the PAYDAY Player Council. It’s something we’ll be developing this as we go, but it starts by letting us know you are interested by emailing — [email protected] – to answer some of the questions we’ve seen since the stream:
  • We’ll pick people based on our needs. When we’re ready, we’ll reach out to the players selected for additional information and details. Make sure you include information about your player profile!

Step 3: New Ways to Play

We want to expand what PAYDAY is by building upon our past to create a future that is stronger, more innovative, and more exciting. This includes, but is not limited to:

• New heists, mechanics, and narrative arcs that don’t just add content but reshape play.
• Consistent release cadence both in timing and quality.
• Fresh experiences: both permanent systems and temporary challenges.
• Long-term outlook: opening doors for community involvement in the games evolution and content.

Each new release for PAYDAY 3 should feel distinct, introducing mechanics and stories that keep the game evolving and your interest hooked.

Step 4: The Ultimate Heisting Fantasy

The destination of our plans are bigger than patches and updates — it’s about creating a living PAYDAY universe:

• A game that provides not just content, but a sense of purpose and belonging.
• Progression that’s interesting enough to make you think about it in bed after a night of playing.
• We want the player to have a “heisting home” – somewhere they want to return to time and time again for years to come. A hub for ongoing stories using fleshed out characters and plotlines.

Final Takeaway

The big takeaway from this stream is that we are committed to PAYDAY. The team is growing, we’re taking a serious and hard look at everything we’ve done and will do. We see your feedback around PAYDAY 3 currently, we want to fix all of it. Not only fix them, we want to surpass your expectations and give you the game you didn’t even know you wanted. A PAYDAY that’s great today, and amazing 10 years from now.