How to invite friends in Payday 3

Payday 3 is better with friends, and thankfully for players, getting the crew in the same heist isn’t that difficult. You can invite your friends from different platforms to set up an elaborate stealth plan together (and, if you play like my crew, abandon it the second it goes awry).

Though you can still matchmake and dive into heists with others, coordinating heists in Payday 3 works better when you and your teammates are on the same page. If you’re playing with people you know, it’s easy to get into a voice chat and split up tasks during a run, so one can look for the pesky vault code while someone else gets a jump start on a different objective. And if any alarm rings, you know you can rely on your friends to escape. Here’s how to get friends in your Payday 3 lobby.

Inviting friends in Payday 3, explained

The social menu lets you invite friends to your Payday 3 lobby. Open the Social menu by pressing “P” on PC or the Menu/Start button on both PlayStation and Xbox. Find the friend you’d like to invite and press “O” (right-stick on console) to send them an invitation. Once they accept it, they’ll join your lobby if you’re matchmaking.

You can send invites while you’re matchmaking, in the pre-mission lobby, and even mid-heist. If you and another player are on the same platform, you can also shoot them an invitation directly from there—for instance, using Steam’s built-in Invite Friends menu. You don’t need to be on the same platform as your friends to dive into the game together, though.

Can you invite cross-platform friends in Payday 3?

You can invite friends from PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S to your lobby in Payday 3 if you have crossplay enabled. The game uses a Nebula account from developer Starbreeze, so getting friends into your lobby is fairly seamless.

You can find your platform friends at the top of your friends list, but you also have the option to show Payday friends you’ve added through Nebula. If you bought the game on Steam and one of your friends has the game on Xbox Game Pass, for instance, you can add them as a friend through Nebula to play together.

How to join a friend’s game in Payday 3

If your friend is playing a mission or setting up a lobby, you can use the Social menu to join their game. On PC, you can just click their name, but if you have a controller, press “Y” or Triangle to join in.

Once you join a friend, you’ll go straight to the pre-mission lobby, where you can change your loadouts and get your character kitted up for the heist. When you confirm you’re ready, the game will put you into your friend’s session. If it’s still a stealth run, you’ll start out unmasked, which can be helpful if your friend wants an extra hand in smuggling out your ill-gotten goods. And of course, if they’re in the middle of a firefight, you can always put your mask on and go lend them a hand.