“We will be able to share a date with you relatively soon when the first update for consoles will hit,” said Payday 2 producer Amir Listo in February. We’ve been making some real progress.” It’s now the end of July, and there’s no indication when console owners are getting new content.
Payday 2: Crimewave Edition is an updated version of Payday 2, released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in June 2015. The Xbox One version famously had matchmaking issues for months after the game was released.
On PC, developer Overkill has been regularly issuing content updates, such as new heists, to keep players interested. None of that has shown up on the console version, though Overkill has been promising it since launch.
Understandably, Overkill was focused on matchmaking when the console versions came out. Since then, Overkill has occasionally published videos to YouTube vaguely promising that progress was being made. Though it promised an update in February, a video on April 8 brought little news.
“We can’t give you guys an exact release schedule yet, but as soon as we can, we will do that,” said Listo. “For all of those out there who are in disbelief that we maybe aren’t working on this or whatever. Don’t worry, we are working on this. […] We are continuing development, that we do care about this, and we’re sorry that it’s taking so much time.”
A few weeks later, another declaration that things were moving forward.
“We are making great progress, and we are getting a lot closer to having it fully working,” said producer Andreas Penniger. “Today, we’re going to show you gameplay on the console for the first time.”
They did, at least, show off gameplay.
Though console owners have been patient for more than a year, things came to a head this week when a Steam post titled “400 days with no console update” went viral and blew up on reddit. The Steam user seemed to figure a message board for the PC version was a good place to get heard.
He was right. Producer Amir Listo soon responded to folks’ concerns.
“We are currently in a loop of bug testing -> bug fixing -> bug testing until we have a solid update,” said Listo. “As soon as we can give you a date that we can stand by, we will do so.”
You can imagine why some folks might take that with a grain of salt.
“We haven’t abandoned development,” he said. “We’ve never been closer to to releasing more content on consoles than we are now. What I’ve said to others is that whatever I or anyone else in the crew says right now doesn’t matter until you guys actually get some solid dates and actual content. That’s why we did the last status update and are focusing on finishing it up.”
Listo said there was a “unique set of challenges” that has made the console updates take so long, and explained how they’re actively working on a system to make future updates easier to pull off.
“If we could add more developers and thus finish it faster we would do that,” he said. “However, that is not how it works; every project is different and sadly in the scenario we are in, throwing more people on the project won’t solve anything. We need to let the team work and finish the update, one day at a time.”
Though there’s still no release date, Overkill understands the anger.
“I can only offer my apologies that it’s taking this long to release additional content and that we can’t be more specific on when it’s ready,” he said. “We are taking every necessary step to ensure that we never let you console heisters down again in this kind of fashion. It goes without saying that we are frustrated as well not being able to solve it better than we have.”
The company’s answers are getting downvoted on reddit, meaning it’s harder for people to find them. On Twitter, the company is making its case.
Console heisters, we will redeem ourselves with actions, not words. First step will be getting the first content out the door. #PAYDAY2
— Almir Listo (@almirlisto) July 19, 2016
For now, console players continue to wait.
This is hardly the first controversy surrounding Payday 2, either. After pledging to not include microtransactions in the game, the developers experimented with microtransactions. It did not go very well.
Comments
7 responses to “Fed Up Payday 2 Console Players Have Been Waiting A Year For Promised Updates”
I’m probably in the minority here, but I stopped enjoying Payday 2 [steam] when they started adding in flame throwers, miniguns and rocket launchers and 25 “re-up” infamy levels. I have considered picking it up on XB1 this weekend (currently 60% off!) because it didn’t have all this rubbish added into it, in the same way that Orange Box on X360 is the “true” version of Team Fortress 2, not the abomination it has become on Steam. You can’t play that old version on PC anymore, the version without hats and loot. Now I’m reconsidering.
Payday isn’t even sure what it wants to be. On one side it brands itself as a strategic bank heist coop game on another its just a chaotic blast em all, wave defence game.
I would in a second grab an actual bank heist game where you properly case the place, form a strategy, storm in and take hostages. You then delay the police via barricades, gadgets and most of all hostage negotiation. It’s what Payday thinks it is, but is far from it.
This is a fantastic answer I give people all the time, it is true but it doesn’t mean a damn thing. For eg.
I have never been closer to dying than I am now
I have never been closer to turning 70 than I am now
I have never been closer to posting this specific post on Kotaku than I am now
I have never been closer to paying off my mortgage than I am now
I have never been closer to losing control of my bowels and wearing adult nappies than I am now
Now you try! insert anything that could happen in the future and become a PR master!
Personally I’m flabbergasted that anyone played this game for more than two hours to begin with. I lasted 90 mins.
It was a schizophrenic train wreck and completely unsure of what exactly it was trying to be.
Personally I spent a lot of time on it when it first came out, my interest did eventually fade off when I’d pretty much bought all the weapons and couldn’t be bothered doing another re-spec.
As a former X360 owner I can tell you, you guys are probably gonna get shit all.
I got payday 2 on 360 when it came out, i quit the game before the first update arrived. pretty sure it was around 2-3 months after launch. All we got was a lot of “be patient updates are coming”. (Is 2 months patient enough guys?)
with the excuses PC updates were just easier to get out there, the patching process on consoles is more difficult, etc, etc, blah blah.
And then they ended up announcing in a STEAM post that they were killing last gen support anyway.
Can any last gen players comment on how many updates you guys received over the games lifespan?
It’s clear it should have never been a console game to begin with.
I understand devs telling us to be patient, but our situation was X360/PS3 users playing a barebones mess, and PC players are rounding update 10 at the same time – surely they can understand why console users would be getting pissed right?
It sounds like they’re doing the same thing to current gen console users now.
I believe it was 1 update on x360.
How come you don’t even mention how hard the x360/ps3 players were fucked over?
Even though the updates are pretty much irrelevant at this point, i feel like people should actually pay attention to the cost of such a thing. It seems like in situations like this, people excuse themselves from logic because their anger is justified. I feel like presenting or considering issues holistically as opposed to dichotomously would go a little way in softening the arbitrary and often impossible demands of uneducated gamers.
The previous update that introduce the “Ninja” character was a cheap move.
He simply comes in does these kicks and nothing affects him for the longest time.
Cheap move that took all the fun out of the game, in the same way that
Mass Effect 3 multiplayer update opened new areas of the map so now enemies started coming
up behind you again cheap move by developers.
And why is there no ability to transfer your progress from the X360/PS3 versions?