Payday 3 CEO apologizes for launch day chaos, but the damage is done

Payday 3 launched just two days ago, and it’s already facing serious issues, mostly relating to bad networking and connectivity.

Following the rocky launch, Tobias Sjögren, CEO of Payday 3 developer Starbreeze, released a statement on Twitter apologizing for the game’s poor state, and admitting that they “should be able to do better.”

The unstable servers have prevented the vast majority of players from experiencing the game. Starbreeze recently adopted an online-only design philosophy for their title, which came as an unpleasant surprise to fans. Being unable to play offline and with the servers down, frustrated players have swarmed Payday 3’s Steam page, and now the game sits at mostly negative reviews.

While Sjögren has vowed that the company “will work tirelessly” to fix the game’s many issues, it seems that the damage is already done. Payday 2, a cult classic among action games, remains vastly more popular despite the sequel’s recent release. At the time of writing, the game has over 40,000 concurrent players. Keep in mind that Payday 2 is over a decade old, whereas the sequel is still in its infant days, and can only support 67,000 concurrent players.

Payday 2 has 88% positive reviews on Steam compared to the sequel’s 31%.

The ratings speak for themselves, and 50 percent difference between the titles is staggering to say the least. It remains to be seen if Sjögren’s promise of “heisting again without issues” will actually come to fruition. Even if it does, it seems that Payday 3 is rapidly heading for disaster. Whether it recovers or stays irreparably damaged is anyone’s guess, but if the numbers are anything to go by, things are looking gloomy.