PAYDAY 3 has finally turned its reputation around. For some time now, I've been recommending this game to everyone, saying its current quality is worlds apart from before, far more polished than at launch. This free weekend event proved just that: during the event, the total player count surpassed 320,000, with 250,000 of them being new players trying the game for the first time.
Adolf Christiansson, CEO of Starbreeze Studios, expressed his gratitude in a recent blog post: "Thank you to all the veteran players who guided newbie crews through their first heists—you were kind, patient, helpful, and warmly welcomed new members into our community. Thank you to the newcomers who triggered every alarm but still came back for more fun. And thank you to everyone who recommended the game to friends and convinced them to try it out. You made the popularity of this free weekend far exceed our expectations."
Christiansson admitted that a year ago, PAYDAY 3 definitely couldn't have pulled off such a successful free weekend event—the game at that time "fell completely short of what players expected from our studio." Now, over 320,000 players teamed up to loot a total of $600 billion in cash, "an amount enough to make most nations nervous," and the team promises they won't stop there.
"Our core goal this year is to win back everyone's trust. Next year, we will reward that trust with actual content," said Christiansson. "To all players joining for the first time: welcome to the heist crew, you've arrived at just the right time. To the veteran players who have been with us from the start: when giving up would have been far easier than persisting, you kept this game alive. All upcoming content will be shaped based on your feedback."
"We won't slow down on updates. Regular patches will continue to roll out, we'll keep sharing our development progress, and we'll continue listening to player feedback—it's this persistence that has brought us to where we are today. And we won't wait until next year to act; new content will go live later this month, and we believe you'll love it. Stay tuned to our official channels."
In addition to thanking the community and promising more updates, the PAYDAY 3 team also released some impressive event statistics. After all, even if 320,000 players only played for one weekend, the impact they created was considerable.
- A total of 725,671 heists completed
- Total cash looted by players reached $601.6 billion
- The community collectively secured 8.9 million loot bags
- During this weekend, players fully embraced their inner Breaking Bad characters, confiscating a total of 527,286 bags of meth
- 100,996 heists were completed with full stealth
- A total of 504,538 players were arrested by the police
- Players took down a total of 115 million law enforcement officers, with 55% being headshots
- In just four days, players spent a total of 542,000 hours on heists, equivalent to 62 years
- "No Rest for the Wicked" was undoubtedly the most popular heist, with over 700,000 attempts; however, the highest total earnings per session came from "First World Bank," with a combined loot value of $88.9 billion
"But the moment that moved us most happened on Sunday evening. At 8:39 PM CET, the concurrent player count exceeded 22,000. This far surpassed our usual peaks, and we watched this number climb steadily throughout the entire weekend," said Christiansson.