Payday 2 Review

There’s a palpable sense of tension in the air as I rummage through an opened safe, stuffing cash, cocaine and jewellery into a sack. Next to me a civilian tries to stand up only to be shouted down by my colleague, a heavily-armoured man wearing a unicorn mask. As I finish loading the goods there’s a smash and an alarm suddenly sounds. “Arse”, someone types on the in-game chat as police pour into the nightclub we’re robbing.

Welcome to the world of Overkill’s Payday 2, sequel to the cult hit Payday: The Heist. Like Valve’s popular series Left 4 Dead, the game relies on a strong core mechanic of four-player co-op and, also like Left 4 Dead, you are completely at the mercy of your teammates.

The game’s various levels, named “heists”, come in varying flavours of difficulty and setting, from simple smash ‘n’ grab jobs in small stores to quests over multiple days and scenarios. In each you can be joined by three other wannabe crooks set on shifting as much loot as possible before the police show up – or so you would think.

Payday 2 incentivises stealth in most cases: civilians can be intimidated to stay on the floor, tied up so they can’t call the police and herded around for easier control. Take a guard out with a silencer and you can answer his pager to calm down jumpy reinforcements. All the while your comrades can be busy drilling into safes, fencing stolen watches and packing loot into the back of a van. Unfortunately, with the random nature of server selection (and if you’re not playing with friends) you’re more than likely to be cursing under your breath as one of your teammates saunters into a bank and begins blasting away with a shotgun.

Once the alarm sounds police will descend upon you rapidly, creating an exhilaratingly tense stand-off. Players will have to work together against security measures, police assaults and increasingly powerful waves of enemies as they try to escape. This will often result in some intense gunfights as all four of you attempt to juggle fighting off the cops and stealing the loot. An excellent heart-pumping soundtrack, which dynamically increases or decreases in tempo during in-game events, helps to ramp up the anxiety of trying to escape with your ill-gotten goods.

Levels are randomised, ensuring that each needs a thorough “casing” – scoping the place out un-masked – before you swing into action. Unfortunately it is during these prelim sections when some of the game’s flaws can become clear. When you get a break in the gunfire, shouting and stealing (which admittedly isn’t often) you begin to notice copy and paste character models, endlessly frustrating invisible walls and flat-looking textures. That’s not to say the game isn’t good-looking; in fact a multitude of the outside areas are pin-point detailed, engrossing and immersive, nonetheless little niggles can break that immersion again and again.

Perhaps most frustrating of all, however, is the game’s offline single-player. The game is obviously a co-op designed for online enjoyment yet for those hoping to prove their mettle by going solo this mode is sorely lacking. AI helpers (limited to just two) can’t use objects or carry items and essentially just become bodyguards rather than fellow criminals. Nearly all of the heists, as a result, are unplayable solo, which makes you wonder why Overkill decided on including it in that state at all.

When Payday 2 works, however, it works very well. Players can choose from four extensive skill trees to stylise their play: the stealth-heavy Ghost, gun-toting Enforcer, gadget-savvy Technician or crowd controlling Mastermind. Overkill also went out of their way to create a sense of community within the game, wherein new items, heists and community events are continually added to keep the gameplay fresh for players. If you add to that the truly staggering amount of weapons, gadgets, customisable masks and features and you have a game that can entertain for hours on end – whether you’re dropping in for a quick stealing session or setting aside an evening for the perfect crime.