Payday 3 will require an online connection to its servers to play, its producer confirms. While many people will be wanting to play Payday 3 online as the follow-up to some of the best co-op games on PC, if you’re one of those players who enjoys the heist FPS as a solo experience, you might be out of luck. With the Payday 3 release date not far away now, it’s a good thing to keep in mind when deciding whether it’s for you.
During a livestream hosted by Payday 3 producer Almir Listo, one YouTube commenter asks whether Payday 3 will have an offline mode for those who are playing solo. “No,” Listo responds, “you will be able to play it by yourself, but I do believe you will have to have a connection in order to play, because it’s made in the Unreal Engine, it’s using cross progression, cross play, I believe we need you to be online.”
You can hear Listo’s comments for yourself during the archived livestream below, where he is playing Payday 2 with community members, beginning at around the 9:15 mark.
Payday as a series most obviously makes its name as a co-op game. Working together with your pals to take down enemies in tandem, holding off incoming police while your mates load up bags of cash, and synchronizing your talents and skills to make a quick insertion and a clean getaway is a clear draw. For those of you who are enjoying Payday 3 together, online mode is obviously a necessity anyway.
But playing previous Payday games solo is not only a viable option, it can actually be one of the most satisfying and fun. Pulling off stealth missions as a solo player is an incredibly thrilling experience, while grinding out some gear by repeatedly banging out one-person missions quickly can be a rather effective strategy.
In addition to this, some people just prefer to play solo, or with bots on their team – if you don’t have other Payday friends and aren’t looking to join random players online, then having AI companions come along can be a great alternative. And with some of the best Payday 2 mods like Better Bots enabled, they can be more reliable than some of the people you run into when trying to play online.
It’s undoubtedly going to be disappointing to some players, then, that an online connection will still be required even if you aren’t intending to join actual online multiplayer. It also means those of you hoping to play Payday 3 on Steam Deck will need to remain somewhere that you can get a consistent internet connection.
Take stock of the Payday 3 system requirements if you’re still planning to jump into the action at launch, or blast your way through more of the best FPS games on PC instead.