Payday 2

Payday 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed by Overkill Software and published by 505 Games. The game is a sequel to 2011's Payday: The Heist. It was released in August 2013 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. An improved version of the game, subtitled Crimewave Edition, was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2015. A version for the Nintendo Switch was released in February 2018.

Two years after the events of the previous game, the Payday gang comes to the Washington metropolitan area to perform another heisting spree. The player takes control of one of the gang's twenty-two members and can perform heists alone, or with up to three teammates. The player can participate in a variety of heists, including but not limited to robberies of banks, shops and armored cars, and producing and distributing narcotics. The game differs from the previous by allowing much more customization of the player (aesthetically and gameplay-wise), somewhat improved graphical interface and experience, more variety and playability in levels, and has reworked stealth mechanics.

An accompanying web series was produced to promote the game. The game was profitable from pre-orders alone and received positive reviews. Payday 2: Crimewave Edition which offers improved graphics, new content and some DLCs, was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2015.

A sequel, titled Payday 3, is currently in development and is scheduled for a 2023 release and will be published by Koch Media. It has also been announced that Payday 3 will be made on Unreal Engine.

PAYDAY 2 was announced when very little information was shared, other than Overkill Software would work on the sequel and 505 Games would publish it. In March, Overkill began showing previews of the game to major gaming publications.

Overkill has attempted to address complaints from the previous game. The PC version is regularly updated, runs smoother and looks much better because of the larger studio and the bigger budget.[2] Furthermore, the game has more downloadable content planned than the previous game. The console versions, however, have not received the same amount of positive feedback, due to the lack of updates and support. (See below)

As mentioned in a developer Q&A, PAYDAY 2 was supposed to feature special cross-overs into Overkill's 2017 co-op zombie survival, Overkill's The Walking Dead due to both games taking place in Washington D.C.[9] However, with The Walking Dead being pulled from Steam and having been a financial flop, these planned cross-overs never happened.

The game consists of a variety of 'heists' that a player can opt to either carry out by themselves, with the AI, or as part of a multiplayer game. There are heists such as bank robberies, drug trafficking runs, rigging an election, or stealing smuggled nuclear warheads. Some of the heists put a large emphasis on stealth, often leading to bonus experience points and money on completion, and certain heists can only be done in stealth.

The level selection menu is styled as a fictional website, Crime.net, where missions pop up periodically as contracts in a map of Washington, D.C. The player can pick up an open contract, join a contract another player has started, or buy a contract with in-game money in an offshore bank account. There are seven difficulty levels: Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Overkill, Mayhem, Death Wish, and Death Sentence (formerly One Down), with increased money and experience payouts for higher difficulty levels. Currently there is an option to enable the "One Down" function on any difficulty, meaning that players can only go down once before going into custody (goes up to two downs with the "Nine Lives" skill aced). Independent of difficulty was the "pro job" condition - pro jobs give additional experience, but cannot be retried if the players fail. Pro Jobs were later removed in an update.

CRIME.NET - A dynamic network of local contacts offering contracts to the PAYDAY Gang.

Dynamic Heist Progression & Scenarios - Most heists now offer multiple approaches with multiple variations of level geometry and events that can either compliment or complicate your approach. Some heists even have multiple days (a maximum of seven, although currently, the longest heist has only three, not counting escapes)

Reputation, Skills, and Perk Deck System - After each heist is complete, the player is awarded their payday (including a card) and experience to level up their "Reputation." Every level 1 skill point is granted, with 2 bonus skill points each tenth level (10, 20, 30, etc). In addition to that, Perk Decks convert experience to perk points using a ratio based on your level, it starts at 100:1, and increases by 100 per perk point for every increment of 10 levels that you hit.

Player Customization - Players are now able to purchase & customize masks, weapons, and modifications for those weapons.

Safe System - Once a heist is completed, players are eligible to receive one of the multiple weapon or armor safes on the card drop section, granting players one weapon skin or armor skin respectively, for free!

PAYDAY 2 includes several features to allow players to customize their experience including heist assets, masks, skill trees, and weapons.

Assets

Assets are tools that the player can purchase using in-game spending cash to assist in completing the heist. Most heists offer some form of assets and typically have unique ones as well.

For instance, an ammo bag may be purchased for use in a bank heist and will be available once the heist starts. In addition to that, the player can opt to purchase insider info, which is exclusive to any variant of the aforementioned bank heist.

Some assets are also DLC exclusive such as the grenade case, and thus requires ownership of Gage Weapon Pack #01 to buy.

Masks

In addition to choosing your preferred character, the player can unlock new masks, colors, materials, and patterns to customize their appearance. By default, players will utilize the iconic masks of each character.

At the end of each heist during the card drop, the player has a chance to earn one of the aforementioned components. There is also a chance that one of those drops may contain an infamous variant of said components.

It should be noted that once a mask (excluding Infamy-reward, event masks, achievement-tied and Poetry Jam masks) is customized, it will no longer be available for re-purchase until it is re-acquired via card drops. Any customization items applied to the mask will also be lost (although any items gained from aforementioned exclusions will also return rather than be deleted).

Skill Trees

Skill trees are an RPG-esque feature which allows the player to balance between an adaptive and/or specialized playstyle. There are five skill trees in which the player may pursue: Mastermind, Enforcer, Technician, Ghost, and Fugitive; All of which have 3 subcategories. As players complete heists and gain experience, they will progressively gain levels; dubbed "Reputation." Each new level will unlock a single skill point (with multiples of ten giving three).

Players can unlock tiers by allocating enough skill points to gain access to more skills. Each of the skill trees offers new abilities (body bags or silent drilling) to assist the player in completing heists.

In each skill tree in PAYDAY 2, there are 3 separate sub-trees. For instance, the Mastermind tree has a Medic sub-tree, a Controller sub-tree, and a Sharpshooter sub-tree. Each sub-tree has four tiers: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4. Skills do not cost any spending or Offshore Cash to apply, but prior to the revamped skill trees of the current build of the game, they did require spending cash as well as skill points. Tier 1 across any of the trees is 1 point for basic and 3 points for an ace. Tier 2 costs 2 points for basic, and 4 points for an ace. Tier 3 costs 3 points for basic, and 6 points for Aced. And finally, Tier 4 costs 4 points for basic and 8 points for Aced. Instead of respeccing an entire skill tree at once and gaining back all the skill points you spent a percentage of the cash you spent, you can now respect any individual skill and gain back the skill points you spent.

Weapon Modifications

Example image showing different modifications for the Compact-5 submachine gun.

Players can earn weapon attachments and other prizes upon successfully completing heists. For longer heists, this takes place at the end of the final day. Weapon mods are either attachments (such as scopes and suppressors) or modified/replacement parts (such as new stocks, foregrips, etc). Each weapon only supports specific mods, though most mods are usable on more than one weapon.

Each weapon mod affects the appearance and stats of the weapon. Some include a tradeoff (for example, increasing accuracy but decreasing concealability), while others only make positive changes. Players should take care to look at the mod's effect on the stat's table, as some descriptions are not always updated.

After a weapon mod is found, it is placed into the player's inventory. The player may use spending cash to attach a mod to a weapon. The mod can be removed from the weapon and returned to the player's inventory at any time but will cost the same amount to attach it again. For this reason, it is more cost effective to have two of a weapon with different mods than to take the mods on and off (e.g. owning a Compact-5 with a silencer attached for stealth and another with no silencer for greater damage, rather than repeatedly paying to remove and attach the silencer as needed).

Mod effects stack but are constrained; for example, if adding two mods that increase the stability of a weapon to the maximum value possible, adding a third mod that would otherwise increase stability will have no effect. Careful balancing of mods can improve the weapon with no downside if the negative effect of each mod is canceled by a positive effect of another.