Starbreeze has been struggling to keep fans happy nearly a month after the release of Payday 3. Today, they have an update about the game’s long awaited first patch.
On their official website, Starbreeze sought to shed light on the situation with the latest patch. They actually started by making more public an update their community manager already posted on their Discord last week.
Basically, some last minute vulnerabilities suddenly popped up that the studio had to address. They needed to get these fixed immediately, because they could affect player progression. Unfortunately, because Starbreeze didn’t see it coming, they could not give a timetable for how long they could be fixed.
But there’s some good news. Starbreeze explained they had already submitted the patch to the different platforms. That means it’s up to PlayStation, Xbox, and Valve, to test and certify the patches. As soon as the platform holders get back to Starbreeze they will be able to put those patches up.
Starbreeze also stated that they were committed to parity across platforms. For better or worse, what they are hinting at there is they wait for all platforms to certify the patches before they publish them at the same time.
Ultimately, this is likely the best thing to do, so that all the players can keep playing together. Starbreeze took great pains to set up a system so that playing with gamers across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam is seamless, thanks to their own system. If they had tried to start one platform’s update first, that could break up teams that were already used to playing together.
Starbreeze also mentioned the feedback they received in regards to progression. In their words,
“Our designers are looking at how the system can be adapted to balance both the challenge system as well as offering infamy points for each heist…“
No timeframe for when they implement this either, but they will let the public know when they have settled down onto how they will set this up.
Finally, Starbreeze makes a new commitment to share more information about future plans after they are all set up to deliver patches on a consistent basis. Assuming this means they will have to iron out all their issues first, that could take a while.
Starbreeze is certainly already aware of the hazards of not keeping their audience interested. Once again, Payday 3 is their big opportunity to bounce back after nearly falling off the face of the earth with the failed release of Overkill’s The Walking Dead. While we hope Starbreeze can get back to where they were, they are going to have to earn that trust from their fans the hard way.
