Players Furious Amid Server Issues and No Offline Mode, stating: “Payday 3 Sucks!”

Payday 3 had a very rocky launch over the past week. The latest sequel in the heist franchise has faced many issues since its release, driving many players to raise their concerns. Moreover, the game had accrued a “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam due to the plethora of server issues. With no offline mode for Payday 3 to help alleviate the problem, a large portion of the player base had come to the conclusion that “Payday 3 sucks”. But is there merit to harsh criticism and what will Starbreeze do about the matter? Let’s find out.

Starbreeze CEO Addresses Player Concerns

With mounting pressure from the players, Tobias Sjögren, the CEO of Starbreeze – the developers of Payday 3 – took to X to address their concerns. In his thread, he did not shy away from their criticism, taking the time to offer apologies and hint and possible future solutions.

It’s no secret that many Playday players enjoy taking on the game’s challenges by themselves. With the “always online” model in Payday 3, this means that players still have to join matchmaking, even when they want to play alone. This in turn means that server stability and ping can still result in the inability to play the game. Long queue times, failed matchmaking, and crashes, all have been a huge part of the Payday 3 experience for everyone.

“We are so sorry that the infrastructure didn’t hold up as expected, and although it’s impossible to prepare for every scenario – we should be able to do better. We work tirelessly until we have restored all services and our players can get back to heisting again without issues!” said Sjögren in the initial message to the fans.

Can Offline Mode Save Payday 3 Amid Server Troubles?

However, many players simply don’t understand the necessity for “always online” mode that overwhelms the servers. Players who try to play solo and those with a multiplayer crew all vie for the server slots, causing the issue for everyone. As Donkey King pointed out “As soon as I saw it was always online it went from a buy to a hard pass. I wish you the best of luck on the game but who didn’t see this coming.”

To this specific response, Sjögren replied with something that should be interesting for all Payday 3 enthusiasts. He stated “[…] been communicated by Andreas for example that team is looking at possibility to add some sort of offline mode.”

This hint towards an offline mode would be a breath of fresh air to everyone looking to play Payday 3. This way, both solo and multiplayer fans will get a chance to play, and hopefully alleviate some server pressure. If this mode rolls out, and with upcoming server stability updates, Payday 3 would become much more stable and accessible for everyone.

Unfortunately, this response is all we have to go on for now, with no further hints about the timeline. There’s hope that an offline mode will come out sooner rather than later, but without any concrete details, it’s all up in the air. 

In the meantime, while you wait for server queues, check out our Payday 3 guides, such as How To Get Out of Cuffs, How to Take and Trade Hostages, and Payday 3 Roadmap – First Year and DLC Plans.