Payday 3 gets a new (old) game director, giving the community hope

Payday 3 has been fighting an uphill battle since its launch, unlike Payday 2‘s delightful early days (which included Destructoid, too). Now, with the first year of content support wrapped up, Payday 3 is replacing its game director with someone very familiar to the community.

Specifically, Payday 3‘s previous game director, Miodrag Kovačević, is being replaced by the dynamic duo of Almir Listo and Andreas Häll Penninger. Almir Listo, specifically, is a known quantity among Payday players. Having been under the limelight for the vast majority of Payday 2‘s development and specifically coming under fire during the infamous safe fiasco, he’s since regained the players’ trust. In fact, Almir has been so successful that the community is positively thrilled with Kovačević’s demotion.

Almir is now one of the game directors in charge of Payday 3

Now, it doesn’t seem like there’s any real bad blood towards Kovačević, with most players being glad that he’s still going to stick around working on Payday 3. Yet, the fact that Penninger and Listo are taking over as the interim creative force behind the next couple of updates has players cheering on the game’s main subreddit.

For context’s sake, Kovačević took over creative control over Payday 3 just a few months after it first came out. Now, with Overkill actively celebrating the game’s first anniversary, I can safely say that things haven’t gotten worse outright. Stuff is actually happening and getting changed for the better, though the studio has been struggling to keep up with community’s wishes. Might this be the turning point Payday 3 has needed all along? Well, the players are certainly hoping that’s what’s happening.

From my point of view, it’s still far too early to say whether Payday 3 is “back,” as it were. On Steam, the game is still enjoying a ‘Mixed’ review rating that’s been very well deserved, and Overkill is yet to prove it can begin to turn things around properly. Between a remarkably grindy progression system, limited customization options, and a relatively small number of available heists, Payday 3 simply isn’t in a good spot right now, and just loading it up with more and more content is unlikely to help.

Instead, a huge chunk of the broader Payday player base is quite happy to stick it out with Payday 2 from the look of things. I’m not keen on Steam Chart comparisons, but the difference between Payday 3‘s 24-hour 800-player peak and Payday 2‘s almost 12,000 players is striking. Starbreeze and Overkill will have to step up and prove that they have what it takes to keep players around as they move from the legacy title to the young hopeful, and that is no mean feat.