Alright, after a good +1000 hours in this game in just it's 1st year of lifespan, I can say with confidence that this is a game I'd regret losing because of executives making the stupidest decisions ever.

I still stand by my former statement, being "if you're considering buying this game, buy the Gold Edition whilst it's on sale", if the extra weapons / cosmetics ain't your cup of tea, the quality of the heists will easily justify the discounted price you'll buy it at.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now onto what's changed from my old review, and how I feel about it now.

- Still no proper Offline mode, despite it's promise on Operation Medic Bag, all we've got right now is a Solo Mode that's been out, and in beta, since Boys in Blue, kinda disappointing to see they've made us think this was a priority, only to shove it on the side once they somewhat finally got their servers to not die after each major update.

- The UI, whilst it's gotten some love at first glance, is still the same scuffed ♥♥♥♥ we had at launch, just with a nice coat of paint on it, don't get me wrong, I like it, but it doesn't take long to see that most of the hard work on that menu was put on the fortnite-esque lobby looking set, showing you and your crew if you have friends playing with you, no changes to the in-game UI, or how the stores look, you still need to buy favors through a vendor, primaries and secondaries are still mixed together when buying weapons, it shouldn't be this hard to properly categorize them, come on...

- The way you find games tho, is not something I can scuff at, crime.net's back, it's not *perfect*, but it's very great at what it does, it's got filters, and overall makes getting into a game more fluid and enjoyable, a stern difference from scrolling a COD menu and praying the heist and difficulty you picked is also being played by some guy. Alternatively, quickplay is neat, and was the main way of playing for a while before Crime.net came to fruition.

- Ah yes, the Progression rework, back to basics with gaining XP based on your heisting method during a heist and how many bags you secured, long gone are the many challenges someone at Starbreeze must've spent weeks coding into the game, honestly sucks they just flat out removed them, they easily could've kept them and just done their rework as usual, would've meant new players had an extra way to gain even more xp and even do the crazier ones for pure bragging rights.

- Stealth is still miles better than what PAYDAY 2 had to offer, some heists even offer favors to make your run go more smoothly, this is a positive you could NOT change my mind on.

- The mechanic of using a hostage as a human shield is definitely nice on paper, but from personal experience, I've only really used it to either relocate hostages or to look cool on low difficulty runs, the gist of civs now is using them for resources, which it seems PAYDAY 3 plans on utilizing to create it's identity.

- Speaking of mechanics, they've added a couple of new ones, first, adrenaline, making medic bags much more intuitive by making any extra health you gain act as the first barrier of defense, helping you keep that armor a bit longer, with it's own skill system that came alongside it.. And secondly, the consumable system, letting you hold onto FAKs or ARKs to either heal off some lost health (+ gain Adrenaline out of any extra leftover gains) or repair a damaged chunk, pretty neat, does need some extra work on making it synergize with skills and armor types, which I hear Armor 2.0 will do.

- Speaking of armor, urgh the armor on launch... I wish I could say I still liked it, it seemed good at first until the skill rebalance changes and the introduction of adaptive armor, which became the meta, literally nobody currently uses the 2-3-4 blue plated sets, I'll revisit this once Armor 2.0 comes out, which could very much make or break a lot of players' stance on this game.

- Honestly ? since the recent changes it does feel like you could run whatever weapon you want, and really go through whatever difficulty so long as you bring the correct skills and have an idea of what you're doing, it's nice.

- Speaking of difficulties, no new ones got introduced, but we've gotten modifiers instead, although for some reason it seems they've gone from rotating them between a decent selection every other week, to shoving the same 4 on OVERKILL, it sucks they've gone this way until they eventually remember they made a survey regarding player feedback on those and say "oh damn we should probably get to that", but oh well, it... works for now, but it's already becoming a long term problem

- One new special got introduced, the Techie, I was hoping another would join sometime this year, but what we got is decent enough, she throws drones, gotta find and kill her, which gets easier as you become more familiar with her spots on each map, as for the current specials, the Nader's got some quality of life improvements to his kit, so you'll see more use of it, cloakers are still a pain in the ass, tasers are more glorified swats compared to PAYDAY 2, and dozers aren't a threat unless you'on OVERKILL, in which case, always grab a good weapon for those.

- Current launch maps haven't gotten any massive changes, the circles on G&S, UTS, TTS, 99B are still annoying, a sentiment the map designers very much took into account for the DLC heists, apart from that, NRFTW has settled itself as a classic in my book, and one I always love to go back to once in a while, you can't go wrong with a classic bank.

- Whilst the current skill system is limited, we know it's gonna get a rework, alongside a new set of skills called OVERSKILL, related to OVERKILL weapons, so expect me to revisit this part once it's out.

- Tutorial hasn't been updated since the new mechanics that were introduced that I've mentioned before, Adrenaline and the consumable system, kinda sucks as most newbies won't be taught what's meant to be a big factor in your survival.

- New tool got added, trip laser, it's become my main tool for loud now, all of em got a use, just gotta see which works best for you.

- Still somewhat like the OVERKILL weapon system, they even added a minigun, and we know OVERSKILLS are coming, expect more on that when it's out.

- Since "Mask of the Week"'s been announced and introduced, and the recent (currently broken) addition of daily challenges, gaining and using c-stacks is a lot easier and convenient compared to at launch, they're in a better plan than they were before, and I'm sure we'll see more use of them in the future.

- "dodge" could be coming back, we already got some way of doing it through a skill, so I won't say much on it

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Overall, my stance on it hasn't changed much, I feel it's close to, if not, where it should've been on launch, a year ago, I still believe it needs work, which ain't gonna come easy when mr ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ over at starbreeze wants to gut it's developers out of it's body to smear them on ♥♥♥♥ like PUBG collabs and their crappy D&D game that nobody gives a ♥♥♥♥ about.

Future's very much looking dark for this game, but I still hope it'll pull through, cuz like I said, it'd suck to lose a game with as much potential as PAYDAY 3.

Alright, after a good +1000 hours in this game in just it's 1st year of lifespan, I can say with confidence that this is a game I'd regret losing because of executives making the stupidest decisions ever. I still stand by my former statement, being "if you're considering buying this game, buy the Gold Edition whilst it's on sale", if the extra weapons / cosmetics ain't your cup of tea, the quality of the heists will easily justify the discounted price you'll buy it at. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now onto what's changed from my old review, and how I feel about it now. - Still no proper Offline mode, despite it's promise on Operation Medic Bag, all we've got right now is a Solo Mode that's been out, and in beta, since Boys in Blue, kinda disappointing to see they've made us think this was a priority, only to shove it on the side once they somewhat finally got their servers to not die after each major update. - The UI, whilst it's gotten some love at first glance, is still the same scuffed shit we had at launch, just with a nice coat of paint on it, don't get me wrong, I like it, but it doesn't take long to see that most of the hard work on that menu was put on the fortnite-esque lobby looking set, showing you and your crew if you have friends playing with you, no changes to the in-game UI, or how the stores look, you still need to buy favors through a vendor, primaries and secondaries are still mixed together when buying weapons, it shouldn't be this hard to properly categorize them, come on... - The way you find games tho, is not something I can scuff at, crime.net's back, it's not *perfect*, but it's very great at what it does, it's got filters, and overall makes getting into a game more fluid and enjoyable, a stern difference from scrolling a COD menu and praying the heist and difficulty you picked is also being played by some guy. Alternatively, quickplay is neat, and was the main way of playing for a while before Crime.net came to fruition. - Ah yes, the Progression rework, back to basics with gaining XP based on your heisting method during a heist and how many bags you secured, long gone are the many challenges someone at Starbreeze must've spent weeks coding into the game, honestly sucks they just flat out removed them, they easily could've kept them and just done their rework as usual, would've meant new players had an extra way to gain even more xp and even do the crazier ones for pure bragging rights. - Stealth is still miles better than what PAYDAY 2 had to offer, some heists even offer favors to make your run go more smoothly, this is a positive you could NOT change my mind on. - The mechanic of using a hostage as a human shield is definitely nice on paper, but from personal experience, I've only really used it to either relocate hostages or to look cool on low difficulty runs, the gist of civs now is using them for resources, which it seems PAYDAY 3 plans on utilizing to create it's identity. - Speaking of mechanics, they've added a couple of new ones, first, adrenaline, making medic bags much more intuitive by making any extra health you gain act as the first barrier of defense, helping you keep that armor a bit longer, with it's own skill system that came alongside it.. And secondly, the consumable system, letting you hold onto FAKs or ARKs to either heal off some lost health (+ gain Adrenaline out of any extra leftover gains) or repair a damaged chunk, pretty neat, does need some extra work on making it synergize with skills and armor types, which I hear Armor 2.0 will do. - Speaking of armor, urgh the armor on launch... I wish I could say I still liked it, it seemed good at first until the skill rebalance changes and the introduction of adaptive armor, which became the meta, literally nobody currently uses the 2-3-4 blue plated sets, I'll revisit this once Armor 2.0 comes out, which could very much make or break a lot of players' stance on this game. - Honestly ? since the recent changes it does feel like you could run whatever weapon you want, and really go through whatever difficulty so long as you bring the correct skills and have an idea of what you're doing, it's nice. - Speaking of difficulties, no new ones got introduced, but we've gotten modifiers instead, although for some reason it seems they've gone from rotating them between a decent selection every other week, to shoving the same 4 on OVERKILL, it sucks they've gone this way until they eventually remember they made a survey regarding player feedback on those and say "oh damn we should probably get to that", but oh well, it... works for now, but it's already becoming a long term problem - One new special got introduced, the Techie, I was hoping another would join sometime this year, but what we got is decent enough, she throws drones, gotta find and kill her, which gets easier as you become more familiar with her spots on each map, as for the current specials, the Nader's got some quality of life improvements to his kit, so you'll see more use of it, cloakers are still a pain in the ass, tasers are more glorified swats compared to PAYDAY 2, and dozers aren't a threat unless you'on OVERKILL, in which case, always grab a good weapon for those. - Current launch maps haven't gotten any massive changes, the circles on G&S, UTS, TTS, 99B are still annoying, a sentiment the map designers very much took into account for the DLC heists, apart from that, NRFTW has settled itself as a classic in my book, and one I always love to go back to once in a while, you can't go wrong with a classic bank. - Whilst the current skill system is limited, we know it's gonna get a rework, alongside a new set of skills called OVERSKILL, related to OVERKILL weapons, so expect me to revisit this part once it's out. - Tutorial hasn't been updated since the new mechanics that were introduced that I've mentioned before, Adrenaline and the consumable system, kinda sucks as most newbies won't be taught what's meant to be a big factor in your survival. - New tool got added, trip laser, it's become my main tool for loud now, all of em got a use, just gotta see which works best for you. - Still somewhat like the OVERKILL weapon system, they even added a minigun, and we know OVERSKILLS are coming, expect more on that when it's out. - Since "Mask of the Week"'s been announced and introduced, and the recent (currently broken) addition of daily challenges, gaining and using c-stacks is a lot easier and convenient compared to at launch, they're in a better plan than they were before, and I'm sure we'll see more use of them in the future. - "dodge" could be coming back, we already got some way of doing it through a skill, so I won't say much on it ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall, my stance on it hasn't changed much, I feel it's close to, if not, where it should've been on launch, a year ago, I still believe it needs work, which ain't gonna come easy when mr fucktard over at starbreeze wants to gut it's developers out of it's body to smear them on shit like PUBG collabs and their crappy D&D game that nobody gives a fuck about. Future's very much looking dark for this game, but I still hope it'll pull through, cuz like I said, it'd suck to lose a game with as much potential as PAYDAY 3.