Payday 3’s matchmaking issues turned the action game’s launch weekend into a mess, and developer Starbreeze says the problems aren’t over yet. Players who paid extra to access Payday 3 on Sep. 18, 2023 almost immediately ran into network problems, and now, Starbreeze says a third-party update has wreaked havoc on the multiplayer game’s matchmaking.
The issue first manifested as a network problem with Payday 3’s Nebula account system, which prevented players from logging in, even if they had an account. When they did manage to sign in, the matchmaking error popped up.
Payday 3 is always online, even if you want to play alone, so when situations such as these happen, you’re essentially blocked from playing at all.
Thanks for tuning in heisters. We are not where we want to be yet but we will continue these live updates and the open line of communication. Thank you for your support. https://t.co/Vg3IO7qOyN
— Almir Listo (@almirlisto) September 25, 2023
Starbreeze published a statement on Sep. 25, 2023, and held a livestream explaining the situation. The studio said the massive influx of players at Payday 3’s launch led to unexpected issues with the servers, issues that didn’t show up during testing and early access. A third-party partner issued updates to fix the servers, and those updates have seemingly wrecked the servers entirely.
“We are disappointed in the issues our playerbase has faced during our launch weekend, but we are confident in our core product and the quality of Payday 3 – and all available metrics point to it. We have a lot of diligent and consistent work ahead of us to regain community trust, but we will work hard to do it.”, Tobias Sjögren, Starbreeze CEO, said in the statement.
In the statement, Starbreeze also said the team is evaluating a number of options for Payday 3’s future, which could potentially include a much-requested offline mode.
Meanwhile, if you’re trying to play Payday 3 in the coming days, expect some rough patches.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
