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Payday 3 Steam player count flagging as fans await first patch

2013's Payday 2 still has 10 times as many players.

Three masked robbers in Payday 3 shooting rifles at armed police. The confrontation is taking place at a large house's outdoors area. The police are at a distance, with the robbers at the forefront standing on marble tiling. Bullet holes litter the house's walls
Image credit: Deep Silver
Liv Ngan avatar
News by Liv Ngan Contributor
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One month after launch, Payday 3's PC player count has dropped to around 10 times less than that of its predecessor, Payday 2.

Payday 3's released was marred by server issues which left players unable to access the game during its launch weekend, something which developer Starbreeze blamed on a third-party matchmaking service.

While these issues have been resolved, players are still finding other problems with the game technically, and with its UI, progression, and its always-online requirement. Many Payday 3 Steam reviews compare the game to 2013's Payday 2, calling 2 a superior experience and suggesting others are better off playing that instead. Which is exactly what Payday fans look to be doing.

Payday 3 - Gameplay RevealWatch on YouTube

On Steam, Payday 3's concurrent player peak overnight was 3234, whereas Payday 2 attracted a peak of 36,538 players (as recorded by SteamDB). Payday 3 had a higher player count at its launch, but a few days after release players ditched the game. There's been a slight uptick in player count for Payday 2 since then, but overall it's maintained a stable number of players around the 50,000 mark.

A graph of Payday 2 and 3's concurrent player counts over the past three months. Payday 2's count remains fairly stable within the 40-50k region, while Payday 3's count starts at 80k and quickly drops to below 10k.
A graphical comparison of concurrent player counts for Payday 2 and Payday 3, calculated by SteamDB. | Image credit: Eurogamer / SteamDB

The Payday subreddit is filled with players voicing their frustrations at the state of Payday 3, as well as Starbreeze's silence on long-missing first patch which was first delayed from the beginning of October to the middle of the month, only to then be delayed again indefinitely.

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