After a catastrophic launch period, Payday 3 is assembling a veteran crew for its own daring rescue mission

Payday 3 has not had the smoothest of launches, with PCG's Tyler Colp finding some positives in the latest instalment of Starbreeze's heist-em-up, but concluding that much of it "needs a rework." Players were similarly unimpressed with elements like the progression system, the always-online requirement combined with matchmaking woes, various stability issues and then the cherry on top: a "critical error in our backend" that delayed the release of the first patches considerably.

The upshot? Over 36,000 «Mixed» Steam reviews, only 40% of which are positive, and a playerbase that looks like a fraction of what Payday 2 had going. At the time of writing just under 30,000 people are playing Payday 2, while 605 are playing Payday 3. Starbreeze is in trouble with this game and seems to have been caught completely off-guard by the sheer negativity of the reaction. It's one of those things where players who love Payday 2 really love Payday 2, so the sequel's issues are seen by some as almost an affront.

So what's the plan? Well, we don't know yet, but the plan is definitely to come up with a plan. Over to Starbreeze:

«We're well aware that many of you aren't satisfied with the game the way it is in its current state,» says a new blogpost credited to Almir Listo (brand director and community lead) and the Payday 3 team. «Since launch, we've been reading your valuable feedback [which] helps us massively and is crucial to the continued development of Payday 3.»

Listo says that «we've put together a strike team of veteran developers from the design, community, communication and production teams with the focus on bringing Payday 3 up to where it will meet your expectations.

»This team is currently creating a plan, deciding what will shape the game into the heisting experience you expect from a PAYDAY sequel in both the short & long term."

There's undoubtedly something amusing about a heist game assembling a grizzled crew of old-timers for One Last Job, and I reached out to ask