Payday 2 - Clown Masks, Stick-Ups, Gunfire, and Unlockables

Overkill is back with a sequel to Payday, the quiet little indie game about reading poetry, flower pressing, and getting in touch with your feelings.

Here’s a list of gameplay features straight from the criminal’s mouth:

[ul]
[li]CRIMENET – The dynamic contract database lets gamers pick and choose from available jobs by connecting with local contacts such as Vlad the Ukrainian, shady politician “The Elephant” and Mexican drug trafficker Hector, all with their own agenda and best interests in mind. CRIMENET features dozens of varied, exciting jobs and as the player progresses, new contacts with new jobs become available.[/li]> [li]Choose Your Profession – As players progress they can invest in any of four special professions: the Mastermind, the Enforcer, the Ghost and the Technician. Each features a deep customization tree of associated skills and equipment to master and they can be mixed and matched to create the ultimate heister.[/li]> [li]PAYDAY Loot – Finishing a job isn’t just an accomplishment to be proud of. After a successful heist gamers will also earn rare and powerful new equipment such as masks, weapons mods, mask modifications and a variety of other accessories.[/li]> [li]Weapons and Modifications – A brand new arsenal for the serious heister covering everything from sniper and assault rifles to compact PDWs and SMGs. Once players have settled for a favorite, they can modify it with optics, suppressors, fore grips, reticles, barrels, frames and stocks – all of which will affect the performance of their weapon. There are also purely aesthetic enhancements – why not go for the drug lord look with polished walnut grips for your nine?[/li]> [li]Mission Assets – Every job has a set of purchasable assets that can alter and enhance the heist such as a faster escape car, blueprints or even inside help.[/li]> [li]Character Upgrades – The signature PAYDAY mask can now be customized into tens of thousands of different combinations, color and material variations and there is a bigger selection of gear to wear for the discerning high-fashion heister.[/li]> [li]Multistage Jobs – Many contracts feature several separate stages allowing for mission forks and different outcomes depending on what the players accomplish in each individual stage.[/li]> [li]Rob Banks With Friends – Players must choose their crew carefully because when the job goes down they will need the right mix of skills on their side.[/li]> [li]PAYDAY Gun Play and Mechanics on a New Level – Firing weapons and zip tying civilians never felt so good.[/li]> [li]Dynamic Scenarios – No heist ever plays out the same way twice. Every single scenario has random geometry or even rare events.[/li]> [li]Character Progression – Gamers begin as dime store thieves and as the game progresses they unlock new skills, weapons, accessories and masks, eventually becoming legendary robbers.[/li]> [li]Play It Your Way – Each job allows for multiple approaches such as slow and stealthy ambushes to running in guns blazing. Players hit the target any way they want and watch as the heist unfolds accordingly.[/li]> [li]AI Director – PAYDAY 2’s new AI director breaks new ground and requires even more from the dedicated co-operative player base. Enemies will devise strategies in response to player action like flash banging, breaching tactics, freeing hostages and even recovering loot bags. [/li]
[/ul]

Screens and a gameplay video at the link.

It’s not a game about a cool peanut-y candy bar?

I couldn’t find anything about a business model in the CVG preview or on Google, but those sound like freemium consumables to me. Payday 1 can be really tough, even with friends. If Payday 2 is the same way, or even worse, then I don’t want to have to continuously pay — or grind — just to have a chance at winning.

Considering that XP in Payday has always been represented by money, it could be something more along the lines of spending earned XP for a bonus on the next mission, which might be an interesting dynamic. I just hope that leveling isn’t as much of a slog as it was in the first game, since as much as I enjoyed it, not being able to have all the toys really put a damper on my experience after a while.

One of the articles, I think PC gamer?, said that they emphatically said that there would be no microtransactions

EDIT: yeah, the PC Gamer one: http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/payday-2-the-headline-features-of-overkills-heist-em-up-sequel/

Shhhuuush. Nobody interrupt Tom’s summer fling with Guild Wars 2, but for those interested, it looks like the beta access for the Career Criminal Upgrade edition (the $50 pre-order bundle) is live. The pre-order comes with two beta keys amongst other digital goodies (the best of which seems to be an in game discount on the criminal loot store or whatever-- not a micro transaction thing). The beta does not have all the heists, but looks to have as many missions as the original and all progress is reset at retail launch. Basically it looks to be a fairly deep three week demo to let fans get a taste and let them do a last bug hunt.

I’ll be eager to hear impressions. Anybody buy in yet?

My finger is on the button, but I have not committed yet. Basically I am throwing candy on the floor and seeing if folks jump. I can wait three weeks for $20 or I can jump in to knock over banks tonight and save some grinding (loot discount) later. Both are fine with me.

That is a nice looking Hersey bar right there… eyes the edges of the room

I bought in, but not enough to get into the beta unfortunately. 50 bucks seemed a bit steep for a multiplayer only game. I am excited to jump in at launch though. The videos sold me on it.

The first Payday sold me on this. :) However, I have no desire to play if my progress is just going to be wiped, so I’m holding out for the final release. Come on, August 13th!

I did, however, watch Killing Zoe again to get myself psyched for some Payday. TRUE STORY.

-Tom

I’ll buy on release day, really enjoyed Payday: The Heist and had a lot of fun with it.

Going to watch Killing Zoe again too now (thanks Tom) followed by Dog Day Afternoon.

This game is the bee’s knees. I have a beta pass, first to reply gets it.

PM’d you, Rudy.

Memememem!

Thanks to the kindness of StereoD (who is a dog!) I will be happy to share my impressions with you lot.

I really, really like Payday 2.

I thought the first Payday was just okay. The gunplay wasn’t great, the leveling system was weird (I choose what I want to level BEFORE I get the points?), it took too long to get new guns, the voice acting was terrible, and the missions were either too easy or WAY too hard. There was never a sense of urgency either - it always felt like there was a lot of waiting around and not a lot of running around, even in the Heat inspired level. I lost a bunch of gamer cred when I convinced my friends to jump in with me and they were lukewarm to it. Payday 2 pretty much addresses all my issues with the first game.

Missions are broken down into two types - one day heists, and multiple day mini-campaigns. A one day heist will be a simple smash-and-grab - break into a bank or a jewelry store, get the money, get out. The multiple day missions, though, have a backstory, arc, and conclusion to them. Hector is a Columbian druglord who wants you to ruin some low level gangsters that ratted him out - start out by breaking into their Meth lab and forcing their cooks to make you meth (it’s a very Breaking Bad inspired scene). You can still complete objectives different ways too, - in the next level, you can trade the meth to a bunch of thugs for information on where the Rats are… or you can shoot the thugs and keep the meth for yourself (like what my crew did) then break into their headquarters and steal the documents with the info. Finally, you track down the Rats, but they’re being escorted by the FBI out of the country and are on a bus on a bridge, in the rain. Very cinematic.

After completing a mission you get experience and money (they’re separate now). The more difficult the mission, the more money and XP you’ll make. The leveling system is back, but you choose what to use points on AFTER you earn them. There are 4 “tracks” (Enforcer, Stealth Guy, etc) with a large variety of perks to move through - the perks feel more substantial than in the first game, too, with unlockables like sentry guns and C4 that you can use to blow up doors or safes. Upon mission completion, you’ll get a large sum of cash that gets put in your “offshore accounts” while you’ll keep ~10% as spending money that you can use on guns, masks, accessories, and weapon add-ons. You’ll also get a playing card that has either a mask piece or a weapon add-on, sort of like Lost Planet 2’s slot machine thing. It is INCREDIBLY satisfying to complete one of the mini-campaigns on VERY HARD mode and see that you’ve earned a ton of money to spend on guns. You kind of feel a sense of camaraderie with your fellow players too; you all went through Hell together and now you get to reap the rewards as a group. I’ve been in several games where someone has exclaimed that they plan to “make it rain all day” after we get 350k each.

Guns feel way, waaaaaay better. They jostle and kick back and SOUND really good. I love add-ons (I was one of the four who liked them in Colonial Marines!) so it’s always exciting to me to add something new to my guns. There are a lot of them too; ~15 primary weapons and 10 secondary ones.

A new thing that they added is that you have your own house that you can wander around in. It has all your guns, a vault where all your money is stacked up (again, very reminiscent of a recent Breaking Bad scene), a room that displays all your guns, another room that displays all your masks, etc. Kind of neat to see all the progress you’ve made stacked in front of you. I don’t think you can invite your friends over to see it, though.

The voice acting is still terrible.

Overall, I am very excited to play the full version of this game and have pre-ordered it. Thanks again, StereoD!

Anyone want to go in on a 4-pack ($22.50 each)? It will be through Amazon, so every person would get a Steam key from me as soon as I get them from Amazon, the day of release.

Is that for the CCE? It seems low, its probably not the CCE.

No, just normal.

Got a CCE edition for $30ish (tf2 key trade for game), put in about an hour so far, its very much improved in presentation and shooting feels really good.

Really like the safe house , makes you feel like your part of the world now , and not just doing missions.

I’m up for a 4 pack.

Normal 4-pack

  1. Giaddon
  2. instant0

Two slots open!