PAYDAY™ The Heist
PAYDAY™ The Heist screenshot 1PAYDAY™ The Heist screenshot 2
ActionFPSCo-opHeistMultiplayerCrime

19 playing

Peak in the last 24 hours: 61

Peak in the last 7 days: 86

PAYDAY™ The Heist Steam store

Game description

Take on the role of a hardened career criminal executing intense, dynamic heists in constant pursuit of the next “big score”

Basic info

DeveloperOVERKILL - a Starbreeze Studio.
PublisherStarbreeze Entertainment
PlatformsWindows
Steam DeckPlayable
Release dateOct 20, 2011
Price

Prices by IsThereAnyDeal

Minimum specs

OSWindows XP, Vista, 7
ProcessorIntel Pentium 4 3 GHz / AMD Athlon XP 3400+
Memory1 GB
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX / ATI Radeon X1900
Storage6 GB
steamyze

Review Analysis Score

Based on 338 reviews from the past 1 year

80.9/ 100
Top 50%

Steam rating: Very Positive (93%)

Metacritic: 76 /100

Review analysis summary (Reviewed Oct 23, 2026)

Masked robbers, a drill and relentless police waves set up PAYDAY™ The Heist, a co-op heist shooter scoring 80.9 across 338 analyzed reviews.

👍 Strengths

116 reviews find it fun, and some recall lasting friendships and favorite gaming memories from it. 66 praise the co-op, saying teamwork and covering each other make heists with friends shine, and some like the banter between the crew. Multiplayer ranks 269th of 642. 27 enjoy a challenge where every enemy feels like a real threat, and some find the cover-based fights tense and rewarding. Tech & Support ranks 283rd of 1399.

👎 Where it falls short

Content Volume ranks 1171st of 1351, appearing in 30% of analyzed reviews. 34 say it has too little content, with only a small set of heists, and some want more missions. 23 call the difficulty brutal, with overwhelming police waves even on lower settings, and a few say it is unfriendly to new players. 15 find missions repetitive, replaying the same few maps with little variety in weapons or objectives. Others say leveling takes too long or that bots struggle to keep up. Gameplay ranks 562nd of 1396.

Representative reviews Original reviews ↗

“made a lot of friends and had some of the best gaming memories on it” · 116 reviews
“co-op with friends is more fun and easier than solo play” · 66 reviews
“enemies are genuine threats; difficulty feels fair and engaging” · 27 reviews

How it holds up

−50+5

Controls, difficulty, progression and depth
Mentioned in 47% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Difficulty +1.50 · How hard it is, how the challenge ramps, and whether it feels fair
Positive “enemies are genuine threats; difficulty feels fair and engaging” · 27 reviews
Negative “brutally difficult with overwhelming police waves and tough enemies” · 23 reviews

Progression 9% · Onboarding 7% · Freedom 2% · Strategy 9% · Controls & feel 12%

Plot, characters and the world
Mentioned in 21% of reviews · Bottom 50% of the games we've analyzed

World +2.93 · Lore, atmosphere, and how immersive the setting is
Positive “immersive world with tactical cops and great atmosphere” · 19 reviews
Negative “transformed into circus of running and killing without coherence” · 2 reviews

Story 3% · Characters 4%

How much there is to do, variety and replay value
Mentioned in 30% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Volume -1.61 · How much there is to play, including endgame, for the price
Negative “only a small number of heists, would like more missions” · 34 reviews
Positive “6 awesome heists plus 2 DLC and PC exclusive, quality over quantity” · 2 reviews

Variety 11% · Replayability 4%

Graphics, art style, music and sound
Mentioned in 20% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Audio +3.41 · Music, sound effects, and voice acting
Positive “musical accompaniment praised as positive aspect” · 17 reviews

Visuals 12%

Playing with others, the community and servers
Mentioned in 43% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Playing together +2.70 · Fun of playing with friends, teammates, or rivals
Positive “co-op with friends is more fun and easier than solo play” · 66 reviews
Negative “bots don't know how to sprint and position correctly” · 13 reviews

Community 12% · Servers & Connection 1%

Pricing, cheaters, balance and matchmaking
Mentioned in 16% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Balance -0.13 · Whether classes, weapons, and builds are evenly matched
Negative “turned into mindlessly easy horde shooter, lost darker tone” · 10 reviews

Anti-cheat 1% · Pricing 9% · Matchmaking 1%

Bugs, performance and developer support
Mentioned in 13% of reviews · Top 30% of the games we've analyzed

Performance +0.15 · Frame rate, optimization, and loading times
Positive “lightweight, no lag, good sales price” · 6 reviews
Negative “poor optimization and bad configuration” · 2 reviews

Stability 4% · Developer support 3%

Grey means too few reviews mention it to trust. — means almost no reviews mention it.

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