Payday 3 Will Require You To Always Be Online, Even in Single Player

During a YouTube livestream, developer Starbreeze Studios’ global brand director Almir Listo confirmed the upcoming sequel Payday 3 will require players to always be online even when playing the game single-player.

While playing Payday 2 on the stream, one user asked Almir if Payday 3 can be played offline, and responded by saying: “No. You will be able to play by yourself, but I do believe you will have to have a connection in order to play because it’s made in Unreal Engine, and it’s using cross-progression, cross-play, I do believe we need you to be online.”

The question was brought up and answered at the 9:17 minute mark.

Starbreeze Studios has yet to address or make an official statement after the comment.

Since the comment from Listo, the Payday 2 Subreddit has been expressing their dissatisfaction over this decision of having Payday 3 always online.

One of the main concerns fans have brought up is that with Paday 3 requiring you to be always online, it could mean that in the future — if let’s say the developers no longer support the game and player numbers have dwindled — the game they paid for can no longer be unplayable once its servers are shut down.

Now, this isn’t something new as many games have adopted this concept, but this series is known for its offline support as the Payday community is used to the game being playable offline thanks to Payday 2 having that feature on multiple platforms.

This is a growing concern from players for years as more franchises where online is a key part of their game are adopting the requirement to always be online in order to play. The most recent title that has the same concept is Diablo IV, which will always require an online connection to play the game as it has no offline support on any platform.

Payday 3 is launching on September 21, 0223 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The game will also be available through PC and Xbox Game Pass.