Payday 2 was, and arguably still remains, one of the most beloved online multiplayer experiences available on PC. With a solid range of varied and interesting missions, a strong core gameplay loop, and a decently entertaining narrative & cast of characters pushing the story forward, it had the makings of possibly the best cooperative game this side of Left 4 Dead 2. That's provided you could get past some of the… let’s call them questionable DLC practices endemic in early 2010s games. A full decade later, and the long awaited sequel has finally arrived, ready to show us that, yes, the Payday magic is still here… sort of.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. Payday 3 pulls a bit of a modern Hitman by telling its story in the form of pre-mission cutscenes, providing insight into what happened to the main cast of characters between games 2 & 3, and why we need to risk our necks to rob some banks again. There’s a longer version of this, but basically someone tried to kill the Payday gang and the attack resulted in all their money being lost, so now we've gotta engage in some grand larceny and wanton violence.

The gameplay in Payday 3 largely resembles Payday 2, with a mission-based structure revolving around robbing banks, stores, and other things that hold valuables. You and up to three friends engage in heists that are designed to start off stealthy but transition somewhere along the way into action. Completing missions requires performing a number of individual steps, like locating codes, disabling alarms, breaking into vaults and, of course, grabbing and escaping with the valuables, all while avoiding detection or bullets from security guards and police officers.

A few things are different this time around. From a mechanical standpoint, stealth is now a much more viable option, with guards having “searching” phases and taking longer to alert in general. Stealth in Payday 2 was, broadly speaking, a “keep it for as long as you can” deal, whereas in Payday 3 completing entire missions stealthily is very doable without too much practice. There are even entirely different objectives that switch depending on how long you can remain in stealth mode.

Once chaos almost inevitably ensues, the way that police respond is also revamped; waves of them respond from different locations with breaks in-between. One very neat feature is the ability to trade a certain number of captured hostages in exchange for an additional amount of time between waves of cops, which adds an extra incentive to not go in mindlessly shooting everything that moves as soon as you get detected.

There are fewer heists this time around; only eight with the base game, as opposed to the eleven that launched with Payday 2, although the ones here are certainly more elaborate and offer a greater amount of replayability. All told, it took me about 5 hours to get through the base game. For $40, there’s a justifiable amount of content, especially considering the additional difficulties and variety of the level design on hand.

Sadly, it wouldn’t be a Payday game without some technical problems plaguing its launch, and Payday 3 is no exception. There are quite a number of technical problems, from inconsistent framerate and visual glitches, to AI characters running in circles, server problems making it impossible to connect to matches for significant chunks of time, and more. Another stickler is the rather dubious omission of some key online game features, like voice chat. While I assume this will be added later, failing to have a voice chat feature at launch for a game that relies so heavily on communication between players is unacceptable.

The progression system also feels pretty lackluster as well, with most of the upgrades being based on “killing X number of enemies with a certain weapon,” meaning the most effective way to grind progression is to just jump into a mission and shoot up police until you die. It feels like a much smarter way to frame this would be completing missions quickly with a certain item in your loadout, or something like that; as it stands, the best way to advance is to not play the heist game like a heist, but rather a shootout.

That aside, the biggest knock against Payday 3 may be out of its control entirely at this point, which is the player count. Payday 3 has seen its player base nosedive over the past couple of weeks, to the point where Payday 2’s player base was ten times larger at one point. Even the discounted price of $40 is a tough ask for a game with inconsistent servers that not many people are playing on anyway. So I suppose the recommendation for Payday 3 comes down to whether you have friends that you can readily play it with. If not, it’s a little tough to suggest, even at a discounted price. But if you do have 2-3 people you can jump into a lobby with, give it a shot; it may not wind up quite surpassing Payday 2, but it’s still a fun co-op title that's unlike anything else on the market.

You will probably like Payday 3 if: You're looking for a good co-op time and have friends willing to jump in with you.

You might like Payday 3 if: You're a bit lonelier in the friend department. Hey, I'm not judging, I had to beg some random dude I knew in college to be our fourth.

You will probably not like Payday 3 if: A rewarding progression system and unlocks are a must for a you.