Recent reviews by Livaco

the original... but improved!!!!!!11!1!!

toot

Ah, I see we're back to the game having remote code execution & infecting peoples computers with malware. Thanks Activision!
Great game, but don't buy or play it, as Activison refuses to secure it & it's servers properly.

This game is far from perfect gameplay wise, but it's still better than any of modern FNAF game we've gotten from Steel Wool, so I kinda have to give it credit for that.

This story is genuinely one of the most deep, complicated, deceptive and impressive tales I've seen from a game. I'm not going to put it above Cyberpunk 2077 my beloved, but it's damn close.
Don't expect a AAA experience, there's performance issues and minor bugs, but given the size of the team and how smoothly it manages to play regardless is fine enough for me.

TLDR; If your a fan of slow (like, really slow) storytelling with big buildups and massive mysteries and have a decent PC, this game is a must play.

I had planned to write an actual in-depth and critical review of this game, but had reached Steam's character limit while not even covering a single positive point... all of what I can write for this game is bad, and so bad I can't contain it in a single review. That's how bad this game is.
If you want a TLDR from my draft of that review; it's a bad sequel, has bad gameplay, even worse player freedom and skills, has zero fun objectives, no story, and in general just doesn't even come close to a worthwhile purchase. The only worthwhile robbery is the money you would be spending on the game.

It pains me to say all this as a lifelong Payday fan, but at this point Starbreeze deserves the negativity they receive around this game. No amount of Almir begging on stream to buy and support the game will change that for me. There won't be enough money to fund Payday 3 in a years time you say? That's sad, but you walked right into that. You should have made a good and worthwhile game from the get-go, instead of chasing money and trying to fit in with the other AAA games. Because of this, you've alienated your loyal fanbase, in the name of profits which are now declining. Well done Starbreeze.

As much as I want to give this game a positive rating, it's simply too buggy to recommend.
To be clear, the game itself is fine. A bit of a waiting simulator and can be a bit annoying, but nothing that some patience can't handle. The problem I have comes in the constant softlocks and bugs with the only fixing being cheat mods and save file editing. I have no idea why, but this seems to be a accepted fact in the community, which is horrendous given this game's close to coming out of early access.

Just to name a few of the major problems I've had;
- I can get randomly shot up miles into the air when entering any vehicle, sometimes doing the same to the vehicle I'm entering. If this is satsuma, it gets completely destroyed. This is a near constant occurrence.
- Less then a few hours in the game, my wiring mess completely disappeared in front of my eyes and could not be found (no, it was not in the junkyard), softlocking me. I had to cheat it back in.
- Upon loading a save once, my previously mounted engine was back on the engine hoist. After half an hour or so of trying to get it back into the engine bay, I reloaded the save again and simply unbolted it with the intention of putting it in by hand. After unbolting, it simply teleported into the engine bay and broke a few parts along the way.
- Buying some spare parts from Fleetari to repair the engine above, put them into the register's total, but wouldn't let me buy them. I had to noclip into a very specific part of the register to actually be able to pay for it.
- This game, in 2024, does not have autosaving. I was fine with this, until I encountered a crash that reverted an hour and a half of progress because I was driving the entire time, unable to get to a save point.

To put it shortly, if a game relies on 3rd party mods and cheats to be playable, it's not a game that should be coming out of early access while a sequel is in development. While the core of the game is fine, it needs some serious bug fixes and stability issues.

just like most other factory games, this game is the embodiment of an addiction

This is far from great still, but it's a hell of a lot better than regular SB. The game isn't a buggy mess, gameplays unique (although VERY repetitive after a while), I felt like I was actually in a horror game. With the scaled back scope you guys had for the DLC you can see the improvement of production quality behind it now.

Really good, well executed