Payday 3 had its full launch on September 21, 2023, and in the 29 hours or so since, it’s only been playable for a handful of hours. High ping and matchmaking issues have been plaguing players hoping to jump in for some bank heist action, only to be met with errors and ‘Waiting for Match’ on an endless loop. And they’ve had enough, storming onto social media to vent their frustrations in droves.
Sites like Twitter (X) and Reddit are awash with complaints and memes from those who can’t access Payday 3. “The servers need a medic bag,” one person commented on a meme with 3.2k upvotes on Reddit. “Worst launch ever,” another wrote. “Incompetent devs.”
The Payday 3 team has addressed the matchmaking errors on the official Payday Twitter (X) account, telling players that they’re actively trying to fix the situation. “We’re seeing an increase of matchmaking issues, the team is investigating,” they wrote at 9:11 AM PT on September 22. They later followed up less than an hour later with, “We’re now seeing all platforms unable to matchmake, the team is working hard to restore functionality.”
Two hours after that, another follow-up was posted. “The team is still working on the current matchmaking service outage, hoping to have a more positive update soon,” they said. At the time of writing, Payday 3 is still experiencing matchmaking errors.
Despite having a solo mode, Payday 3 is an “always online” game, meaning that players must have access to an internet connection to be able to play. This also means that whenever the game experiences issues server-side, it affects both solo and multiplayer modes.
Whether developer Starbreeze Studios will add in the ability to play solo mode offline to prevent total outages like this from happening in the future remains to be seen. Prima Games has reached out to Starbreeze for comment.
