A message to our players from Starbreeze CEO Adolf Kristjansson (a.k.a. AK)
Heisters,
Last weekend was the PAYDAY 3 Free Weekend, and more than 320,000 of you jumped in, with 250,000 of you putting the mask on for the first time. The rest of you came back, and we couldn’t be more delighted.
So before anything else: thank you.
Thank you to the veterans who carried a crew of rookies through their first heist (you were kind, supportive and you welcomed the new recruits into our community). Thank you to the rookies who tripped every alarm in the building, but still returned for more! Thank you to everyone who recommended the game to a friend, and convinced them that it was worth their time. You turned a free weekend into something far bigger than we planned for.
I want to be honest with you, because you have always been honest and direct with us.
A year ago, a weekend like this was not on the cards. PAYDAY 3 had not lived up to what you expect from this studio, and you told us so, clearly and often.
So we spent the last twelve months earning it back. We listened more than we talked, or at least we tried to. Then we got to work. We reworked PAYDAY 3, using your feedback as the main brief, plus the direction from our team for what it should be. We upgraded the game to Unreal Engine 5 and revisited the heists. Every one of them is now part of the base game, they look better than they ever have, and there are more ways to play them. We still have plenty of work left to do.
None of that was guaranteed to work. Last weekend was the first time we got to see what happens when hundreds of thousands of people load into the game we have been rebuilding. You showed up. A lot of you are still here. That means more to the team than any number below, although the numbers are pretty good too.
We all love stats, and every good crew keeps score… so here’s what you can all brag about.
I look forward to the conversation in our community over who did what!
| The job | The count | For the record |
|---|---|---|
| Heists pulled off | 725,671 | Against 139,495 that went sideways. Five wins for every bad day. |
| Cash stolen | $601.6 billion | Enough to make most countries nervous. |
| Loot bags secured | 8.9 million | Somebody's back hurts. |
| Meth secured on Cook Off | 527,286 bags | 35,731 of them burnt. We are not naming names. |
| Ghosted in full stealth | 100,996 heists | 14% of you never touched the alarm. The other 86% had other plans. |
| Taken into custody | 504,538 times | Half a million arrests. Zero convictions. |
| Law enforcement retired | 115 million | 55% of gun kills were headshots. You have been practising. |
| Time on the job | 542,000 hours | That is 62 years of heisting in four days. |
Your favourite job was No Rest For The Wicked, started more than 700,000 times. Your biggest score was First World Bank, where you walked out with $88.9 billion between you.
Your weapon of choice was the CAR-4, responsible for 35.7 million takedowns, nearly a third of the total. The rookie’s rifle did the heavy lifting. When things got serious, the Marcom Mamba answered 7.3 million times. Frag grenades settled another 2.8 million arguments, and 441,000 problems were solved with a throwing knife, which is just showing off.
You can also tell who has been here a while. New heisters reached for the Signature 40. Veterans brought the M7 Pursuivant and let the shotgun do the talking.
The moment that got us, though, was Sunday night. At 20:39 CET, over 22,000 of you were in the game at the same time. That is way more than our usual peak, and we watched it climb all weekend.
We are choosing not to discuss the civilians…
What comes next
This year was about earning your trust back. Next year is about rewarding it.
To everyone who joined us for the first time: welcome to the crew. You have arrived at a good moment. To everyone who has been with us since the beginning: you kept this game alive when it would have been easier to walk away, and what comes next is built on what you told us.
We are not slowing down. Regular updates will keep coming, we will keep showing our work and we will keep listening, because that is what got us here.
And we are not waiting for the new year. Something is landing later this month that we think you are going to like. Keep an eye on our channels.
Thank you for last weekend. Thank you for the last twelve months. The next twelve are going to be fun.
Happy Heisting.
Adolf Kristjansson CEO, Starbreeze Entertainment
