So, first things first, I've played both Payday 1 & 2. If you enjoy Payday 1, this is your game, but if you enjoy how ridiculous Payday 2 is, this is not for you.


- Payday 3 is more of a story game than Payday 2 ever was. It has a story played out through stylized cutscenes between each heist, which is very difficult to fully understand due to the shortness and lack of context for a lot of the scenes.

- Crime.net is not a thing in this game, and the brokers are not characterized like they were in 2. Ice-T shows up for one cutscene and gives you one heist, but that's it, it felt like they just thought it would be cool to have him in the game, so they did.

- Bain just disappears, which, if you've played the other two games, is a big deal. Bain was the one who was always talking in your ear. I know that he "dies" in payday 2, but still man. I can't even remember her name, but his replacement is just down right bland.

- C-stacks. I understand the issue of making your characters lose all of their aquired money between games, to explain away reseting stats, but this new way for "offshore accounts" working is just rough to be honest. C-stacks are a crypto that you use to buy specific items, such as cosmetics and preset wepons, but they are so expensive that I, personally, can't justify putting a lot of my money into it. (Not IRL money, which is a plus though)

- The lack of heists are an issue. I know that the game just came out and it's somewhat unfair to compare it to Payday 2's sheer scale when it comes to heists, but still. There are a lack of variety of heists in this game. There are eight heists in this game, compares to Payday 2's launch at 12. It might not seem like much, but when you look at the fact that it had a third more than this one, it's a lot less replayable. Which, replayabilty is a big part about this series.

- Preplanning is gone. I know that a lot of people wouldn't use the preplanning phase for it's intended purpose, but that's sort of what made the game more immersive. You are heisters, you need to devise a plan when going in to rob a bank or a highly protected area.

- Favors, they are also almost completely removed. Favors were different things that would help you along on your heists. From body bags, to a giant pig that dropped a big drill to help get into the vault quicker. Now all we have are Ammo, Health, Armor, and the occasional favor to help you with stealth/zip lines. Might I add, you can only pick one? And you have to purchase BEFORE heists.

- Online only. I know that a lot of people will only be playing this on their desktop at home, so it doesn't sound like too much of an issue, right? Wrong. You have to queue up for a solo game, you can disconnect from a solo game and you can't even play the game without Nebula (Overkill's own social hub, similar to rockstar's club)

- Weapons, there are only 17 base weapons. I understand that Payday 2 had only a handfull on launch too, but this is embarrassing. The ARs don't do any damage, the semi-autos are terrible, there aren't ANY melee weapons and I believe the overkill weapons are a terrible addition to the game. I found myself getting the ability to use the overkill drop ,getting it and never actually wanting to use it because it had low damage with slow reload. There are only two overkill weapons, a Grenade launcher and sniper (unlocked at lvl 40). You have to level up each weapon to unlock more attachments for them, which is better than how the system first was in payday 2, but payday 2 fixed this with the Continental coins. Along with the previously stated, low damage output, I found myself only using the pump action that I unlocked really early into the game.

- Stealth isn't really important. I understand that people mainly play loud for this series, but I still enjoy the option to complete a heists as if no one even knew until I'm miles away.

- Skills feel like they don't do much at all. The skill tree is a disaster in and of itself with researching and using that one skill to unlock more in that tree, but I feel like they didn't do much to change my game. I enjoyed the idea of running into a group of cops in a two piece suit, dodging bullets like the matrix and killing everyone, or beating someone over the head with a spoon to terrify everyone around them, OR getting shot a million times just to pull out my flask, take a shot and be back to full health. None of that is possible in this game, making it feel like they don't do anything other than give me a 10% buff in either health, damage or movement speed for a few seconds.

- Masks, the customization was one of the defining features of Payday 2. You're a heister, you want to be unique, the paints and patterns aren't anything special. The lack of mask selection is not something that I would ever have been a thing after all of the masks in 2. Not to mention the fact that they stripped the whole mask customization process, it's the exact same as the gun customization.


All in all, my roommate sums this game up perfectly by accident. She walked in on me in the loading screen and said "I didn't know that Call of Duty got an update." Which, to be honest, is a perfect description of this game at launch. My best piece of advice, wait about a year from release to even consider purchasing this game. That pains me to say because I've played payday ever since it released on the PS3, it was one of my favorite games, my steam profile proves that with my hours in payday 2 and achievements in it. I will be looking forward to seeing Overkill continue to work on this game and listen to their community's input on what they like and dislike about the game, which I hope they do after their involvement with Payday 2 for as many years as they did. But for now, we all have to wait and see what these DLCs have in store for us.