Payday 3 devs delay patch due to ‘critical errors’ that could’ve wiped progression

Payday 3’s anticipated, yet-unreleased first major patch has been late for a few weeks, and developer Starbreeze broke the silence today to share why. The patch is going through testing and certification, but the holdup was due to critical issues that threatened players’ hard-earned progress.

Starbreeze “discovered critical errors with [its] update pipeline,” according to today’s blog post. Not addressing these issues bore a “significant risk” to wiping players’ progression, so the team took the time to solve some of these problems.

The update is going through testing and certification processes, which indicates there’s still a wait until its launch. This will help ensure platform parity, according to Starbreeze, and the brunt of the delay might already be done.

Starbreeze also used the blog post to touch on progression and DLC plans. Players have been calling for changes to the game’s progression system since early into its release, especially during the early livestreams with developers. The team is looking to incorporate feedback when reworking the challenge system and provide Infamy progress for each heist—two frequent demands—and will “come back with more information” in the near future.

The developer also promised more content “once we can consistently deliver patches,” the blog post reads, with more free content before the end of the year. With Payday 3’s hefty issues at launch and the delay of its first major patch, it’s unclear if this will also hinder the release of its first DLC, slated for winter 2023.

Payday 3‘s first major patch was supposed to be released on Oct. 5, but the developers had to subsequently push its launch multiple times. While fans now know the reasons for the delay, the game is still bleeding players on Steam.

The patch delay follows a rocky launch marred by server issues that made the game unplayable and led to an outpour of negative Steam reviews. The servers were unavailable for the most part of its first week on full launch, which led Starbreeze to consider making the game “less dependent” on online services.