DO NOT BUY Payday 3 - Very disappointed

Hello, welcome back to a new video. So

recently I've been playing the brand new

Payday 3, and as an avid fan of Payday, I

knew I just had to play this game.

Unfortunately, so far it's been kind of

bland, boring, and uninspiring. As far as

sequels go, this game has been kind of

lacking in luster in several aspects that

we're going to be talking about in today's

video. So first of all, the matchmaking

and lobby systems in the game is extremely

frustrating where it can take a very long

time to find a match with other players.

Obviously this game is a

multiplayer-focused game, so playing with

bots is an option, but it's very boring.

The matchmaking system only matches with

other players per mission. So you can't

just press quick play and then it'll match

you up with players for any mission. You

have to like choose the mission and then

it'll start matchmaking you for that

mission. But then some missions are not

very popular and don't have many people

playing it, so you'll end up just alone in

the lobby with a bunch of bots. It would

be nice if they just matchmade you with

other players and then put you into any

mission instead of making you choose the

mission before matchmaking. And then when

you finally do get some team members,

sometimes you get some annoying team

members who keep trying to reset the

mission. For example, if you're trying

stealth into the bank and you accidentally

trigger alarms or they catch you.

Sometimes, I mean, for example, this

person I was playing with today, he kept

trying to restart the mission whenever I

accidentally triggered an alarm. And

there's 2 ways to approach this game.

There's the stealth way or the going guns

blazing way. And some players only want to

do stealth, like they want to sneak around

and disable the security systems, when

that's all great and everything, but I

find that kind of boring. I just want to

run in there, kill everyone, shoot

everything up. But other players don't

want to play like that, so if they don't

want to play like that, then you either

have to just leave the match or you have

to like play how they want to play and

keep resetting whenever you trigger the

alarms. It's kind of annoying because you

can't use melee attack to knock out the

security guards, you have to shoot them,

and if you don't have a silencer, it

alerts everyone because of the gunshot,

and that basically ruins the element of

surprise, and then all the alarms get

triggered and the police start coming in.

I find the stealth elements of the game to

be kind of boring. There's too many NPCs

that can potentially see you, and once

you've been seen, you don't really have

much opportunity to get unseen. You can

quickly knock out civilians or shoot the

guards before they can radio in for help.

As you can imagine, there's a lot of NPC

civilians and guards within the bank and

also security cameras, so the stealth

aspect of the game is extremely

challenging, not really one I like. But it

basically boils down to doing a bunch of

little minigames like holding F to disable

some equipment, holding F to activate

something or destroy something. As for the

gunplay of the game, it's very bullet

spongy. Enemies, enemies can take a lot of

shots before actually going down, and it

does feel very arcadey. Not very

realistic. If you're playing a game like

Rainbow Six and then you play this, this

game does feel comically arcadey. So

basically what happens is first they'll

send in a wave of cops, like normal

policemen not really wearing much armor,

just packing pistols, and then they'll

keep sending wave after wave of

increasingly more dangerous policemen,

SWAT teams. And there's also like a

special policeman who jumps down from the

roof or something, jumps onto you and pins

you down, kind of like the Stalker from

Left 4 Dead. This game is kind of like

Left 4 Dead in the sense that you've got 4

people in a team, you've got objectives to

solve, and you get waves of enemies sent

towards you including special enemy units.

But the gunplay combat in this game is not

very enjoyable, you just kind of spam your

weapon at the enemies and they don't

really do much in terms of AI. The AI in

the game is really bad, they just kind of

stand there getting shot at, they don't

try to take cover, they don't really

employ any kind of tactics. The AI is just

really dumb in this game and there's

barely any recoil for the weapons,

weapons don't really feel very realistic.

You kind of just stand there and spray and

pray into crowds of policemen and they go

down. After taking quite a few shots. I

would have preferred it if it was more

realistic, like more realistic bullet

damage, more realistic movement speeds,

and more kind of intense being careful

kind of gameplay instead of just running

around gunning everything down. It would

be more interesting if it was more

realistic, more slow-paced. So when you

finally break into the bank and get to the

money, you've got to deactivate the dies

by holding F. There's loads of these

little minigames in this game where it's

just holding down F to either activate

something or deactivate something And then

you grab the stacks of money and take it

to the pickup location and just dump it

there and run backwards and forwards

between the pickup location and where the

money is and keep transporting the bags.

Some of the bags will be dyed. I don't

really know what that means, but you gotta

collect all the bags, throw them into the

van whilst the police are sending wave

upon wave of SWAT teams after you. And it

does get pretty intense because the

enemies do start getting pretty tough,

and there's some special enemy units like

the Bulldozer, who's basically just like a

very high-armored enemy police team unit,

and he does a lot of damage and he can

take a lot of damage, and he's like a very

tanky enemy. And you just basically run up

and down between these 2 locations

collecting the money whilst trying to stay

alive. And then you finish the mission and

you get the money, and then you can use

the money to upgrade your weapons and buy

new weapons. I quite enjoy this aspect of

the game because it makes the game's

replayability very replayable, because you

want to make more money so you get access

to the better weapons and upgrade your

character. That is where the addictiveness

of the gameplay mechanics do come into

play, and I do enjoy that part of the

game. Unfortunately, this gameplay

mechanic does become very repetitive and

very tedious, and I do tire of this

gameplay loop. And after you realize that,

okay, it's very easy to just collect the

money, run up and down, avoid the enemies,

or shoot them down, there's not really

much in the game that keeps you hooked.

All the levels are basically the same kind

of concepts. You got a bank, you gotta rob

it, you gotta disable the security cameras

You gotta sneak in, or you break in, or

you just shoot your way in. It's basically

the same every level. It's just bank,

bank, bank, but in like a different layout

or a different kind of looking bank with

different floors, different rooms. It does

get very tedious and repetitive. I think

some improvements to the game could have

been if they let you drive the car and

like drive away from the police, and

there's a getaway scene where you got to

escape the police chasing you, get to the

hideout, and then maybe you can have like

a hideout where you have to buy a place

and then make a hideout in a room and

decorate it and make it improved with

improved security systems and cameras,

maybe turrets, and have like a home base

that you can use your money to spend the

money on improving the home base. And you

gotta drive between the home base and

towards the bank and also have vehicles in

the game. So be nice if you could use the

money to buy vehicles as well. It's kind

of pointless robbing a bank and becoming

filthy rich if there's not really many

things that you can do with the money. I

mean, most people would rob a bank so they

could buy iPhones and games and houses and

cars and buy cool stuff with the money.

But in this game, all you can do with the

money is just buy weapons and armor. What

about, you know, buying some fancy

luxurious stuff in the game that you can

use, like a fancy new bachelor's pad or a

nice car, or maybe a motorbike, or maybe

some fancy clothing or an iPhone? I don't

know, something interesting that you can

spend the money on that isn't just guns.

So yeah, it is a nice improvement over

Payday 2 and the previous Payday games.

But I would like to see it a bit more.

The graphical fidelity of the game is also

not very impressive. Considering this game

is released in 2023, I would expect more

from the graphical processing power and

performance of this game. So

unfortunately, I have to give this game a

6.2 out of 10. It's okay, it's fun for a

bit of a laugh, especially if you got

friends to play with. It'll be much more

enjoyable than just playing with the

randoms. Also, I don't like it how the

randoms kind of just quit the game if they

don't like how the heist is going. And

also, new players can't join your team

whilst you're in a game. If you load out a

game with like 2 players and 1 bot and

you, then you're stuck with the 1 bot.

And if people leave, then you'll get 2

bots. But new people can't join into a

game that's ongoing. Like in Left 4 Dead,

if a game is ongoing, you got a load of

bots, you can just begin the game, then

later on people can join the game or leave

the game. That doesn't happen in this

game. It's kind of frustrating. It'd be

nice if the bots eventually get replaced

with real people who join your current

ongoing heist, but that doesn't really

seem to happen in this game. So for that

reason, I would have to not recommend this

game and give it a 6.2 out of 10.