Online games are a bit hit-and-miss to this day still. On one hand, they are great for giving you access to many fun online games. On the other hand, if a game requires an internet connection, server problems or outages will completely keep you out of what you want to play. In the case of Payday 3, we have already seen a very poor launch, with the game struggling to let the players matchmake. The unfortunate part of this is there is no offline mode. Why is Payday 3 online only?
Why does Payday 3 require an internet connection?
In all honesty, we don’t have a good reason for Payday 3 to be online only in-game. Payday 2 came out a decade ago and had no problems with letting people play offline. You could jump into the various heists with AI bots and not have to worry about your internet connection. In Payday 3, the bots are still available, but even if you set up a lobby for yourself, you have to have a connection to the game’s servers to play. You will get a matchmaking error if your internet is out or the servers are down.
Our best guess as to why Starbreeze and Overkill made Payday 3 online-only is for data collection and potentially the incoming microtransactions, Payday Credits. Those credits are only used on cosmetic items, but companies love forcing players to see its stores. Additionally, Payday 3 is very focused on its data collection software in Telemetry. While you can opt out of that data collection, we would imagine the company wants as many people as possible not to pay attention and turn it on the first time they play. That is all speculation, of course.
From what we have seen, there is nothing in Payday 3 that screams it should be a game that requires an internet connection. The max lobby size is four people, and you can make solo lobbies with bots. Hopefully, this move will be walked back in the future, and an offline mode will be added through a patch.