As its much newer sequel struggles, the 13-year-old Payday 2 is getting a 'massive engine upgrade' that improves performance and cuts the install size in half

Payday 2 Gets a Major Engine Upgrade Amid Payday 3's Struggles

As its much newer sequel struggles, Payday 2 is getting a massive engine upgrade that improves performance and cuts the install size in half. In 2025, Starbreeze handed over the venerable heist-shooter to Sidetrack Games, allowing the studio to focus solely on trying to salvage the still-struggling Payday 3. Now, we're getting our first look at the results of that move — and the news is big for Payday 2, which is set to undergo a significant overhaul to its game engine.

The engine update will see Payday 2 ported to a 64-bit architecture. This change should eliminate out-of-memory crashes that have plagued the game over the years. Additionally, the game will be upgraded to DirectX 11 rendering. While this won't improve the game's visuals, it should use significantly less VRAM, allowing the game to run more smoothly on lower-end hardware. Perhaps most notably, the install size has been reduced by more than half, from 86GB to 32GB — a major improvement for players with limited storage space.

The Trade-Off: Modding Challenges Ahead

While the improvements to Payday 2 are substantial, there are some downsides. As Leon from Sidetrack Games mentions in the announcement video, "Sadly, it's inevitable that some mods will break." He encourages mod makers to "repair what can be repaired" during the beta test for the engine upgrade and promises that "we will be there to help out with new file formats where we can."

A beta test for the engine overhaul is set to begin on June 30 and run until the end of July. The test will be open to everyone interested in trying out the changes before the update is fully released. More details, including how to participate, will be shared on June 30.

Payday 3 Still Lags Behind

The question remains: what does this mean for Payday 3? While Payday 2 continues to thrive on Steam, its newer counterpart is struggling to gain traction, with only a small fraction of the player base. Starbreeze's decision to outsource Payday 2 to Sidetrack Games was supposedly aimed at allowing the company to "focus on Payday as a whole and Payday 3 in particular."

However, since then, Payday 3 has seen limited progress. The game has introduced crossovers with PUBG and Roblox, and launched peer-to-peer support — a feature that's always a good move. Yet, it's hard not to wonder whether Starbreeze is evaluating whether the dedicated servers it's maintaining for Payday 3 are worth the investment. While the company hasn't officially declared Payday 3 dead, it's clear that Payday 2 is still receiving the majority of attention.