Payday 3 looks like a very promising sequel, with recent gameplay reveals showing nice upgrades, including improved stealth play and hostage scenarios. Unfortunately, one of the lesser-enjoyed aspects of modern gaming is also making its way to the sequel. Payday 3 will require an always-online connection to play.
While Payday 3 does offer both single-player and multiplayer options, the game will not be playable offline. The game will require a constant active internet connection. The reason behind this might have something to do with Unreal Engine.
According to Starbreeze brand director, Almir Listo (via VGC), Payday 3 will require an online connection due to the way requirements in Unreal Engine when using cross-progression and cross-play.
While Payday and Payday 2 were both very popular multiplayer games, neither required an internet connection to run and players were able to play offline with AI teammates, or completely solo.
While being always online does mean that save progress can seamlessly transfer between devices, the major disadvantage is that the game will cease to function at some point in the future. After a period of time, when fewer people are actively playing the game, the developers will want to switch the servers off to save on costs. When that day comes, Payday 3 will be lost to history, as it will no longer be playable. While some developers do patch in offline modes when situations like this arise, many do not.
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KitGuru Says: Hopefully when the time comes for the developers to move on from Payday 3, they can patch in an offline mode, perhaps with player-hosted multiplayer so that the community can continue to play the game if they want.