What is Telemetry in Payday 3?

When you jump into Payday 3, one of the first things that will pop up on your screen is a warning about Telemetry. The game will ask you if you want to enable it, and it’s hard to make a decision without knowing exactly what it does.

Telemetry isn’t new to the Payday franchise, and it’s unlikely to have any major downsides. Of course, not knowing what it means and whether you should enable it can stump you if you’re just looking to get heisting. Here’s what Telemetry does in Payday 3 and if you should enable it or not.

Payday 3 Telemetry, explained

Telemetry in Payday 3 is a harmless feature that lets developers collect information about players’ styles, gameplay, and loadout choices. This isn’t the first time the feature has appeared in the franchise, so if you’ve been playing for some time, odds are you already know what’s in store.

Telemetry made its way to Payday 2 in Update 199.3, which outlined its function. The feature doesn’t collect any personal information, developer Starbreeze confirmed at the time. Instead, Telemetry focuses on large-scale data. “We will track things such as which heists are the most played, average play session length, and the relative popularity of different weapons, perk decks and heisters,” the developer wrote.

Telemetry in Payday 3 is bound to work similarly. Developers are likely aiming to get more data on the game and how it’s played so they can use that information to make tweak outliers. For instance, a rarely picked weapon could point to it being underpowered, while a weapon being picked 100 percent of the time probably means it’s slated for nerfs.

Should you enable Telemetry in Payday 3?

As far as we can tell, there is no harm in enabling Telemetry, but disabling the feature won’t set you back either. Telemetry involves sharing game data with the developer, so it shouldn’t have any downsides—and it should even help developers make the game more balanced.

We haven’t found a way to change our preferences through the menus, however. Even though Starbreeze might let players tweak this in the future, it seems you may be stuck with your original choice for some time.