Payday 3 is completely unplayable for many gamers

Payday 3 is having a rocky launch, with players warning of lengthy set-up processes and slow matchmaking.

Its not had the best critical reception either, garning a score of 69 on PC. The Xbox and PlayStation scores remain ‘tbd’ as Metacritic awaits further reviews. TRG awarded the game a score of 60, writing, “This feels like a foundation for Payday 3 as a live service game rather than a total product,” while TheGamer similarly said, “Payday 3 is a foundation. [...] In making the jump to it, you’re also giving up the years of updates and general stuff Payday 2 offered. If you’re a newcomer to the series, or a lapsed crook coming back to it, this is a great jumping on point. If you’re already invested in the series, you might find it difficult going back to basics.” Unfortunately, fans share a similarly bleak outlook.

Take a look at Payday 3 in action below.

Reddit user ImCaffeinated_Chris took to the site to call the game “unplayable”. They explained, “This is a horrid launch. The user experience from the start is HORRIBLE. You start with being asked if you would like to be tracked ... Twice. Opt out! Then you have to set up a freaking account. Including verified codes, yup, with all sorts of required fields. Then, once that is done, it asks about linking Steam and other accounts. Nothing like an invasion of privacy right off the bat. Then you get in and they recommend doing the tutorial.”

They continued, “It's wonky and not well done. There are multiple tutorials. [...] Now the best part comes, you can't play the game! The matchmaking setup is not working. There is no way to just do a private two-player with a friend. No matter what you choose, public, friends only, invite only, it will just matchmaker forever. Release day is usually tough for studios. This ... This is embarrassing.”

The user clearly isn’t alone, seeing as the post has garnered 1.3K upvotes at the time of writing. “1.1 hours played, 0.1 hours actual time in mission,” complained one player. SummerGoal added, “People joke about ‘literally unplayable’ a lot … but this truly wasn’t playable all day, and the servers seem to still be dead.” It’s not a great start.