Payday 3 originally had the fanbase’s most-requested feature—but it got cut before release

Payday 3 has been receiving tons of flack from fans for the lack of an offline solo mode and now it has been discovered the threequel did originally include this highly requested feature—it was just cut before release.

The discovery came on Sept. 23, when Payday gamer Zestyclose_Chicken shared a post with two images that are reportedly screenshots from a version of the title that no longer exists and was allegedly never released.

In the screenshot, an alternate version of the menu in Payday 3 is shown. There are many differences in the layout and content, but the most notable is the option to play solo.

In the post, it is stated the images were found in a Steam Community discussion thread. We were able to find that thread, which actually led us back to the comment section of an earlier Reddit post in which a gamer shared the two images, sarcastically stating “It’s not as if there’s a hidden menu in the game with working offline mode and self-hosting!”

In a later comment on the same post linked above, that same user shared they took the screenshots after downloading a Payday 3 mod that unlocked scrapped rough draft menus still hidden within the game’s code.

We were able to confirm the mod does indeed exist, but do not recommend downloading it, as we were not able to find any confirmation it is safe to use.

Regardless, this does show that at some point during development, Starbreeze was planning to include offline solo play in Payday 3, and decided to scrap the feature for some unknown reason. As of now, we have only speculation on why that decision was actually made—however, fan theories are already forming.

The most common theory is good old-fashioned greed. There’s no solid proof to support this idea, but the general consensus from players seems to be Payday 3 was made to be online only in an effort to make it more difficult for people to access DLC content without paying for it. It is quite likely fans won’t ever know for certain why the feature was scrapped, but it is not unreasonable for fans to hope that it will be added back eventually.

The Payday 3 community has been very vocal about the desire for a solo mode, and the extremely rocky servers since the game’s release on Sep 21 have done nothing but highlight the necessity for an option to play offline.

We’re not giving up faith in Starbreeze just yet, and are hoping to see the studio listen to their player base.

At the end of the day, server issues aside, some people just would rather play Payday 3 alone, and there is no practical reason why they shouldn’t be able to.