A Payday 3 gameplay reveal is coming this summer, according to an incredibly ephemeral teaser trailer

Starbreeze Studios and Prime Matter have dropped another teaser trailer for cooperative heist sim sequel Payday 3, and it somehow manages to provide less information about the game than the previous teaser trailer. Lasting a whole 21 seconds, the teaser shows a silhouetted figure saying "alright guys, it's a simple job" before cutting to the Payday 3 logo.

The one useful bit of info the teaser provides is when we can expect to see the game in action properly, the answer to which is "this summer". Presumably, this means we'll see Payday 3 in one of the various non-E3 summer showcases happening next month, although there's no confirmation of that from Starbreeze.

We can also glean a couple of other nuggets of info from around the trailer. In a Steam news post accompanying the video, Starbreeze recommits to releasing the game this year, while also acknowledging the lack of news up to this point. Beyond that, we also know the game will run in Unreal Engine, and features the four playable protagonists from the first two games.

The biggest question hovering over Payday 3, however, is whether it'll emerge unscathed from the disastrous couple of years Starbreeze experienced after the terrible launch of Overkill's The Walking Dead. Following that, the publisher filed for reconstruction to avoid bankruptcy, then its offices were raided by Swedish authorities, with CFO Sebastian Ahlskog accused of insider trading. Ahlskog was initially convicted, but the conviction was later quashed on appeal.

Starbreeze has since claimed its money troubles are over and that Payday 3's development is going fine. From the outside perspective, there's no obvious reason to question otherwise, although given the void of information surrounding the game, there's equally no reason to believe Payday 3 represents a roaring comeback for the Swedish developer. Hopefully we'll gain a better idea of how Payday 3 is shaping up in a month or two's time.

Contributor

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.