Starbreeze Studios CEO apologises for Payday 3 launch woes

Payday 3, the third entry in Starbreeze Studios’ popular co-op heisting series, has not had the best time of things since its launch a few days ago. Coupled with many concerns regarding a lack of compelling content and technical issues is an unpopular always-online requirement, regardless if you are playing solo or not. With servers not meeting launch day demand and many players not being able to play the game they have purchased or downloaded via Game Pass, Starbreeze Studios CEO, Tobias Sjögren, has put out a statement online apologising for the state of the game and promising improvements in the near future.

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!

— Tobias Sjögren (@tobiassjogren) September 22, 2023

“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,” Sjögren stated on social media. “We work tirelessly until we have restored all services and our players can get back to heisting again without issues!”

Since its launch, things appear to have marginally improved with some emergency patches. However, Payday 3 Lead Producer Andreas Häll Penninger acknowledged that players “still might have a few issues“. While many multiplayer-focused games can have rough launches, especially when they have a day-one release on a service like Game Pass to maximise their playerbase, it goes to show that an arguably unnecessary always-online requirement can be a particularly problematic feature to have if the servers can’t keep up with the demand. Previous games still allowed solo players to play the game with AI companions regardless of internet connectivity to ensure that there is still at least some offline functionality. The result of these technical hurdles is a “Mostly Negative” review average on Steam and 1.9 Metacritic User Score average at time of writing.

Games only get one chance to make a first impression. For every No Man’s Sky-style redemption story, there is a game like Anthem which never quite pulled itself out of its tailspin and was prematurely cancelled. The fact that Payday 3 has a co-op multiplayer focus and relies on an engaged and active playerbase might mean for a rocky future if players stung by these launch week woes choose not to stick around.

Of course, no rough launch is insurmountable, and there is plenty of time for Payday 3 to redeem itself. While even the players who were able to play the game had many issues with the game’s technical aspects and content, hopefully Starbreeze Studios will be able to remedy these problems before long. The previous games both enjoyed a healthy amount of post-launch support and DLC, and Payday 3 is likely to be much the same. Things already seem to be moving in a good direction regarding Payday 3’s launch issues, and hopefully for the game’s fans, it will be in a better technical state before long.