Payday 3 gets a fancy courthouse Heist and new guns

After Payday 3 failed to entertain the franchise’s fanbase to the same extent as its predecessor did on day one, the developer Starbreeze Studios went all-in on amping the game up to keep players happy. Months after Starbreeze’s promises, here we are with a new courthouse Heist DLC.

Priced at $11.99 or your regional equivalent, Payday 3: Chapter 3 – Houston Breakout is a bundle containing two separate micro-DLCs and the titular Houston Breakout heist. On top of the heist, buyers also get the Tailor Pack with a suite of cosmetic goodies and the Weapon Pack with three fancy new guns. It’s a solid showing, too, with a ‘Very Positive’ review rating on Steam as of August 20, though the DLC does have a tall task ahead, still.

Payday 3: Houston Breakout comes with a Heist, Tailor Pack, and Weapon Pack included

Notably, Payday 3‘s been in a rough spot basically from day one of its release onwards. Between server problems, an overall lack of content, and some questionable design choices, the game’s meaningful gameplay improvements compared to Payday 2 simply got overshadowed by all the problems that Starbreeze Studios couldn’t get on top of, and it took a fair few months and patches before the game was in a reasonably solid state.

The new courthouse heist DLC is a very solid piece of extra content overall, there’s no doubt there (even if it is Houston we’re saving yet once more, as we already have countless times before). Those who purchase the full Chapter 3 – Houston Breakout bundle via Steam get all of the following:

• Houston Breakout heist
• 4 new suits
• 4 new masks
• 4 new sets of gloves
• Chanit S3 (FAMAS F1 Felin) burst-fire bullpup rifle
• M7 Pursuivant (DP-12) burst-fire shotgun
• Picchio Duro 5 (Beretta Raffica 93) burst-fire pistol

Yet, even though the heist is solid and the guns are great, Payday 3 is still going to have to keep proving itself over and over again before the playerbase accepts it as a valid follow-up to its predecessor.

Following the release of what is, ostensibly, the best piece of post-launch content Payday 3 has received so far, the game’s playerbase jumped up to just over 4,500 concurrent players on August 20. In comparison, Payday 2 enjoys way more attention on a daily basis, with about 20,000 concurrent players on the same day.

Had Payday 3 delivered a stabler and more satisfying gameplay experience early on in its lifetime, I’ve got no doubt that more players would’ve moved on to it by now. Quite simply, when you’re in the thick of it, it’s so much better than Payday 2 that it’s not even funny. Yet, an always-online requirement doesn’t pare all too well with shoddy servers, and so it is what it is, with Starbreeze having to fight an uphill battle every step of the way. For what it’s worth, at least there’s now an offline component to the game.