Payday 3: Boys in Blue Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

In a bid to right a few wrongs and make good on their promises to deliver one of the most exhilarating chapters in the Payday series to date, Overkill Software has just launched Boys in Blue, a freshly minted DLC that’ll reportedly bring several new layers to the Payday 3 campaign. And let’s face it, it has come at a pretty good time, what with the base launch of the third installment initially suffering from a slew of hit-and-miss reviews that, rather surprisingly, were due to mismatched server issues and a significant lack of offline support. And yet, we’re willing to let bygones be bygones and part ways with the past, for a new era of petty theft has begun, and it’s shaping up to be a total game-changer for the acclaimed co-op series. Well, that’s what we’re being led to believe, anyway.

While we did cover the original launch of Payday 3 back in the fourth quarter of last year, we haven’t actually touched it since. Truth is, we’ve been sifting through a lot of its adversaries’ worlds these past few months, of which there are numerous, weirdly enough. However, with the series’ recent rise in popularity and the timely emergence of its latest DLC, we thought we’d return to the root of its world, if only to sport the mask and thermite for a second round.

To make it absolutely clear, Boys in Blue is a paid DLC, which means, if you happened to miss out on the initial season pass that launched alongside the base game back in 2023, then you’re going to have to fork over the extra cash to receive the latest upgrades, weapons, masks, and other in-game bonuses. All noted? Great — then let’s press on, fellow robbers.

Better in Blue

Boys in Blue serves as the latest DLC for 2023’s Payday 3, a first-person co-op looter-shooter in which players join forces with other aspiring thieves and money-laundering aficionados, and take to the vaults of several high-stakes banks and other financial firms to secure a—you guessed it—payday. In this particular case, Boys in Blue acts as a bridge to a selection of additional features—a Solo Mode, which essentially speaks for itself; and an array of fresh masks, loot, and weapons. Granted, it doesn’t add a huge amount to the original game, but it does, however, apply the one thing that we’ve been badgering the developer for since its inception: an offline mode.

Until recently, Payday 3 has been an online-only sort of gig, meaning, if you didn’t subject yourself to a simple yet drawn-out matchmaking process, then you’d essentially have to restrict yourself to the absolute basics. Well, that’s no longer an issue; Boys in Blue has opened up the doorway for an offline career, which effectively means that all of the current maps are now fully playable as a lone bank robber. Granted, this isn’t a new feature; on the contrary, the first two chapters in the Payday series had already implemented such a mode in their respective blueprints. Still, it’s a thing now, being able to slug through the pre-installed maps without having to sell your soul to the servers — so that’s something. Well, I say this as if it’s an incredibly straightforward thing, when really, the servers are still involved, and rather annoyingly, they’re still a little, well, sluggish.

More Bang for Your Buck

In addition to the newly implemented Solo Mode, Payday 3: Boys in Blue also comes through with a series of quality-of-life improvements, including a cleaner UI,  more responsive enemies, and tighter animations, to list just a few of its key features. Oh, and it also comes with a seventh heister to flesh out—an Irish cult favorite who just so happened to make their way into the earlier iterations of the series, of all people. That’s right, Clover is back in the fold, and from the looks of it, she has thankfully managed to retain a lot of the same weapons, tools, gear, and personality traits, too. So, if you did have your heart set on seeing some legacy characters from the earlier iterations of the saga, then rest assured — Clover has made it into the cut.

There are a few other things that have recently been installed into the system, too—a collection of fresh assault weapons, for example. Aside from all of the above QoL features, Boys in Blue has also delivered three new ranged weapons to unlock and deploy on the battlefield: Adeling RG5; ATK-7 SMG; and the Bullkick 500. Add the fact that there are also several new masks, glove sets, and general cosmetics, and you’ve got all of the appropriate components for a relatively, if not incredibly cliché expansion pack. But that’s fine — content is content, and if Payday 3 is in need of anything at all to reignite the wick beside its absent candlestick holder, it’s content. To that end, Boys in Blue has delivered — and then some.

Roll the Dice for Another Heist

To answer that all-important question — yes, there is a new Heist to embark upon in Boys in Blue. Aptly titled, well, Boys in Blue, the latest Heist sees you infiltrating a police holding facility—a corrupt wing of the police department that just so happens to keep a firm hold on a stack of gold of immeasurable wealth.  Naturally, you’re going to want to get your hands on this rather hefty lump of gold — and you can, both in the classic stealth mode, as well as the reckless loud counterpart. As far as all of that goes, not a whole lot is different to what we’ve already seen several times before; in fact, the objectives are mostly one and the same, in the case that, as one of several fledgling thieves, you must devise a strategy amongst your friends, and essentially secure the loot in question — whatever the cost.

I won’t lie to you, but I did struggle to get my hands dirty with this one, and not because I didn’t want to, but simply due to the fact that the servers flat out refused to accommodate my attempt to enter a match. And it was like that for a good while, too. Even still, I can’t say that I was expecting a relatively simple and painless process, to be fair, what with the latest DLC suddenly skyrocketing in popularity and what have you. However, I feel as though it’s something that’s worth mentioning, regardless of the circumstances. With that said, if you are willing to hang fire for another week or so whilst the devs formally dot the i’s and cross the t’s, then it’s highly unlikely that these server issues will continue to affect the experience. Well, we’re crossing our fingers, anyway.

Verdict

Boys in Blue has single-handedly managed to breathe new life into a looter-shooter that, at least in the eyes of its biggest critics, had already shed its skin and parted ways for alternate tides back in the beginning of 2024. And yet, it appears that DLC, at least when constructed correctly and shackled to a myriad of lavish perks can, and in this case does make for a convincing argument. It’s doubtful, really, that the base game will be able to resuscitate the vast majority of its initial player base — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t retain a solid portion of its die-hard fans. Sure enough, if it can continue to pump out quality DLC and hot fixes that are as equally sound as Boys in Blue, then the sky’s the limit here, and I honestly believe that there’ll be a second popularity spike in due course.

Let it be said that Payday 3, at least as a standalone product, is still just as riveting and as gut-loaded with punch-drunk content as it was before Boys in Blue. What’s different here, of course, is that it’s a little neater, and that it’s finally sporting a plethora of features that, to our knowledge, have been dipping beneath the developer’s radar ever since the game launched back in 2023. It’s DLC, though, so while we can only really comment on the latest developments in the game’s mechanics and general infrastructure, it does seem only right that we devote our resources to another review of some sort. In other words, if you’re interested in hearing a bit more about Payday 3, in general, then be sure to check out our earlier preview here.