(This is very rambly, unorganised and very subjective, also I’ll have missed a lot of stuff so apologies, just thought anyone as big a Payday fan as I am might want to know how it’s looking!)

I’ve inhaled my fair share of Payday 2 over its 10-year lifespan. For me, it’s one of those games that I’ll come back to every year or so, and sink another 100 hours in, whether playing alone or heisting with a friend. It’s the amount of content amassed over the last decade that makes the game so replayable, with over a thousand achievements to aim towards, spread across 70 varying heists. Now obviously that’s the result of time and a lot of paid DLC, and when Payday 2 launched, it was a vastly different experience to what it ended up as at the end of its development period.

I’m saying this to point out just how difficult comparing Payday 2’s final state to this (pre) early access version of Payday 3 is. I’m more excited about the kind of game 3 will become than what it’s currently looking like, but that doesn’t stop this Closed Beta from getting me excited for the 21st of September.

This Closed Beta consists of one map, No Rest For The Wicked, which can be tackled in the two traditional Payday ways, loud (guns blazing) or stealth (guns silenced). Despite stealth being my favourite part of my 800+ hours of Payday 2, I’m gonna wait until the final release to get to grips with the new system, and have instead been primarily running this heist loud, which has been entertaining enough, considering it’s the only one available to play. 

Either the levels are glitched, or you just can’t rank up in the Beta, but that limits you to using the standard CAR rifle and secondary pistol, which is a shame. However, a new feature to Payday 3 is weapon levels, which you can increase in the beta. Levelling up unlocks item modifications like stocks, barrels and silencers, and you’re able to outright buy mods rather than having to gain them randomly (or spend CC) like in Payday 2. These two new additions are very welcome as they solve the annoyance of finding weapon mods in early levels, and also provide an exciting incentive to use weapons as you level them up.

Another point before getting into the bulk of the heist gameplay is that skills have been drastically changed. There are still trees to follow, but they all mainly revolve around one of three different categories, being Edge, Grit and Rush. From the descriptions of the skills, they seem to focus on damage, defence and movement speed. As I couldn’t level up in my time playing, I didn’t spend too much time with skills as I couldn’t unlock any of them, but this switch-up on the last game’s formula is certainly an intriguing concept.

The original gang is back! (None of this silly Houston business). Dallas, Chains, Wolf, and original recipe Hoxton are all available to play, and although the four of them seem lonely when compared to how many ended up in Payday 2, I’m sure we’ll get new and returning heisters at some point, most likely behind a paywall, but to be honest, I’d pay to have Duke and Sangres’ voice actors return to deliver some new lines.

The main draw and instant thing to notice about this new instalment is how much better it looks. It isn’t just a graphical tweak on Payday 2, it’s a substantial overhaul to pretty much every aspect of the heisting experience. All the special cops look a lot cooler, especially the Cloaker (wouldn’t have minded if they left them behind though) and the complexity of the new systems in place promise more mechanically challenging heists. 

Unfortunately, even though there are human shields, civilians that run even when tied down, and a new lock-picking system, the bulk of this available heist is simply waiting for the thermite to burn a hole and then moving bags. The earliest heists in Payday 2 were also very similar to this, which is again why I say I’m more excited for where the game can go rather than the beginnings of it. If there are enough interesting launch heists, fantastic, I’m just prepared for there to not be if they’re anything like this. Payday 2 eventually had heists based on oil rigs, casino boats and even the White House, so a standard bank heist like this, even with the new mechanics and features, isn’t exactly mind-blowing.

Hopping into the heist at first can be a bit confusing for returning players from the last game. Some default keybindings are changed, meaning when I tried to interact with something I threw a grenade at it and nearly died, but that’s just something to get used to when full release comes around. A cool new addition is trading hostages in for a delayed Police response wave, which is really cool, but did not prepare me for AI dropping ammo and health, which made me embarrassingly happy, considering how useful that’ll be on higher difficulties. Speaking of difficulties, the heist in the Beta only had four, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Overkill, but seeing all the strange changes that 2 had when it came to heist difficulty, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see variations on Death Wish, Death Sentence, and perhaps, if we’re lucky, ONE DOWN! I’m kidding, they can leave one down, it sucks.

Stealth mechanics have been reworked, and while I didn’t play around with them too much, thanks to there being no private matches, I did have a particularly cooperative teammate do half of a stealth run with me. The aforementioned lockpicking isn’t anything too complex but makes holding F seem primitive by comparison. The pager system now works a lot differently, with differing amounts available to use depending on the difficulty, and failing to answer isn’t an instant failure of stealth, but rather takes up two pagers if available, nice!

The new announcer/contractor seems decent but has some shoes to follow after Simon Viklund’s classic Bain, and everyone’s favourite South African mercenary, Locke. Seriously, some of Locke’s lines are the most iconic in a series with a shit-ton of memorable callouts, and If there isn’t an equivalent to his comment about my mother’s sock drawer, then they won’t surpass Locke in my eyes.

Speaking of Viklund, his soundtrack responsibilities from the previous game have been handed now to Gustavo Coutinho, who has to match the sheer blood-pumping, adrenaline-fueled bangers from the last game, and from what was playing in this Beta, he seems to be doing a bang-up job, with a soundtrack that gives off similar energy and makes moment-to-moment gameplay that much more exciting.

Which again, this heist does need, It’s very simplistic in design, and without the cool new graphical and gameplay tweaks would be a very mediocre heist in the previous game. Also, can we talk about the dye packs on the money bundles? Cool concept and similar to having to defuse bombs in the last game but it seems incredibly punishing for people playing solo, which isn’t something new for the series as in the previous game, entire unlocks were based on the condition you could wrangle four friends into playing. I’ll assume the dye packs will be better utilised but I’ll take that as one of the few new additions I didn’t like.

Overall, again it’s difficult to form an opinion of what the game will end up like but, I’ll admit blowing chunks off of walls is fun, so I guess I’ll say this is something pretty exciting if you enjoyed the last game as much as I did. Let’s just pray that there isn’t as much DLC- pfft who am I kidding, to unlock everything you’ll probably have to spend upwards of £300 over the years, let’s just hope the price reflects the quality of the new heists.