OldValvegames walked a fine line between being revolutionary and comically janky. Ragdolls clipped into the map and started shaking violently, headshots caused enemies to flop around weightlessly, and surprise attacks left you on the ground, glitching out of bounds as the insults dug into your side with each claw.
Paydayalways felt like it was made by Valve, even if it wasn’t. It occupied the same niche, right alongsideKilling Floor, Fear, andDishonored. But Valve doesn’t make many games anymore, so we’re seeing less influence spread and fewer games ape its style. Most are ‘growing up’ and pushing for cinematic experiences, but playing Payday 3 feels like falling back into the ‘00s.
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On the very first heist, I killed a guard who nearly caught us, so I had to find somewhere to hide his body. I didn’t want a random civilian stumbling on him while he was curled into a Twister position in the employee lounge. I’ve playedHitmanenough, I know the drill. I bee-lined for a closet, thinking I could shove him in and slam the door shut. I couldn’t, but I could throw bodies, so I improvised. I tried to position his ragdoll into the small, open nook, but instead, he clipped into a shelf, and his head went through the wall while his arse stuck out, legs flailing. Not exactly the inconspicuous hiding place for a body I was hoping for.
It felt like I was back in Garry’s Mod,trying to get rid of the body while I was Traitor in TTT. But instead of my mates on the lookout for suspicious activity, it was trigger-happy NPCs who call in waves of SWAT teams. I like going quiet in Payday, so I didn’t want the heat, and having a security officer’s head sticking through a wall feels like something people would notice. So, I tried to shove him back through only to get caught. Whoops.
Immediately, Payday 3 told me what kind of game it was. It’s unashamedly silly. Our characters are quipping to cameras that nearly catch them, walking around in suspicious trench coats as they all huddle around locked gates, and crouching through offices as civilians with dead eyes glare at them in confusion. Ragdoll physics only pile onto that hilarity.
It’s not just superficial jank that makes Payday 3 feel like old Valve, though. The half-cartoonish, half-realistic art style oozesCounter-Strike: Global Offensive, as does much of the gunplay. The only modern feel of its shooting and movement is the slide ability. Everything else could easily belong in an old Source engine title. Even the UI and pop-ups screamLeft 4 Dead, while a colourful cast shouts in thick British accents that ‘there’s a BLOODY medkit!’. I know the Left 4 Dead survivors aren’t British, shut up, but they’re just as personable as Hoxton and Dallas, which makes the moment-to-moment grind of carrying bags back and forth far less mundane.
Then you have the enemy types, which areridiculous.I can imagine it’d be terrifying if the police had to contend with four seemingly superhuman bank robbers who could kill 100 cops, take a few bullets, and then eat a medkit to feel brand new. Luckily, they have Cloakers, which are essentially just Left 4 Dead’s Hunters. They spring out of their invisible shield and kick the shit out of you while gleefully laughing, your character begging the others to get over here and do something. And they’re dressed like Sam Fisher for some reason.
Valve occupied a niche that has been MIA for years now. It combined FPS gameplay with unrealistic physics that often made for unpredictable but entertaining encounters, the kind that is hard to find in the scripted and realistic grit of today’s triple-A shooters. Yet here I was, firing grenades into crowds of cops and watching them fly off like an invisible hand had yanked them into the sky.
It’s nostalgic, but it’s mostly charming. Yeah, it kind of takes you out of the rush of a bank heist to watch a security guard glitch in and out of the floor, but it’ll stick with me more than if he had just flopped into a pool of blood.
