Recent reviews by Trimco

After about a year since release, there's no way I believe Payday 3 should have ever been released. And instead of working on dlcs, should have worked on making a base game with good enough structure with the expectation of the hype built up from the the revival of 2.

Granted it is nice that they did move away from some of 2's concepts, giving it the ability to stray away from the insane and goofy bullet hell wave horde shooter cycle that 2 was stuck in. However, the problem I see that caused a huge downfall of 3's popularity. Whether it was starbreeze or silver, somebody didn't take notes of what made 2 so good. Such as the artstyle.

3 chose a more realistic style, imitating more corporate look with each heist. This left very little areas where you can make maps look good, with my only personal favorites being touch the sky and Houston breakout. (One already similar to mountain master, while breakout being a literal coutroom) While payday 2 was able to have an unlimited amount of possibilities ever since it started heists all over the world.

Personally I don't even think this choice of realism was a result of a time gap between the old and new payday 2 dlcs, as you can see some of the same amazing maps in some of the 2020 era dlc (although with the same pricing issues) such ass Buluc's mansion, Black cat. Some of which I could even see as a close enough to realism style to fit into payday 3, done right, such as Dragon heist and Hostile Takeover.

Credit where credit is due, gameplay wise, 3 has a whole bunch of feature additions that spruce up the style in a unique way. Especially with 3 focusing on enemy tactics rather than amount. Granted, I'm not one for semantics about what skills are good are bad, but what I can attest to is how annoying that more than half of all skills rely on triggers to toggle a slight boost for a period of time. Not to mention how it is now required to find some way to abuse a skill to keep edge, grit, and rush, rather than just having it without any other requirements, or just something different than 3 timed icons on your hud.

For me, I believe the soundtrack is another situation where new artists can never achieve what has been done by the original. Of course, with me dumping hours into payday 2, I'm pretty sure I have a bias, and to get accross the sitiuation I feel like 3 is in, the best I can do is compare from 2 to 3, and let you decide.

3 | 2
No Rest For The Wicked | Fusebox
Contra | Driveshaft, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I will give you my all 2017
Ruby Rose | Crimewave 2015
Masterful Deceit | Something wicked this way comes, The Mark,
Ice Punch | Breach 2015, Evil Eye,
Cook off | Gunmetal Grey 2015
Turbid Station | Pulse


The only good way Gustavo's work has been implemented is in No rest for the wicked and Heatwave sounding like something youd hear in an oldschool heist movie, with Heatwave's asssault being the one of the two to also make it work in the assault phase as well. Not to mention Boys in blue's track just sounding good

Now my point isnt to say the artists are similar with one being better. I rather want to point out that when they are similar by any coincidence, you can hear better results with Viklund. I believe this is because Gustavo wont stop using techno and rave music on his assault tracks. It actually correlates with my previous point of Payday 3 having a lack of variety when it comes to it's content. Whats worse is when they were given a golden opportunity to try out something different with its music with Cook Off, they thought it would be a good idea to make it sound like a nightclub.

To sum it up a bit. It's an amazing feat to give payday 3 a completely unique feel, gameplay revamp, and style to it. But you cant make that unique change without taking what was good from your originals to expand off of in a different and maybe even better light. (maybe you should even reconsider how you change off from 2, just take a look at how they massacred Vlad)

is good :)