Immersive Heists in Payday: Aces High
Robbing a bank isn’t something anyone should ever aspire to, but it’s clear the fantasy of being a would-be bank robber is quite lucrative, given the nature of the Payday game series. The series is 15 years old this year and spans 3 entries, and I got a chance to play the new fourth entry with the game’s developers for an hour on my Meta Quest 3 headset.
I’ve been a fan of the series since the beginning, particularly when hosting LAN parties at my house during the original’s 2011 release, then again for several years after the 2013 sequel (plus a revival when Payday 2 added VR support years later). To say the new Payday: Aces High felt like a revival of the LAN party days (in all the best ways) is an understatement, and it brought back not only those joyful glory days of in-person multiplayer gaming, but a sense of comradery that few games manage to deliver.
In this game, you’ll choose one of the Aces — the Ace of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, or Spades — in a quest for revenge on billionaire Warren Jupiter, who landed the crew in jail a few years back.
At launch, Payday: Aces High features six missions with varying difficulties and a range of objectives to complete. Many objectives are randomized to ensure unique playthroughs. For example, you might find the keycode to the security room on a sticky note in a desk during one run on a mission, while another run on the same mission sees that key code written on a whiteboard in the breakroom.
Because VR is so inherently good at communication and body language as a medium, planning and executing a heist feels like you’re actually there doing the dirty deed. During one of the three missions I played during the hands-on event, one player used his grappling hook to get on the roof and sneak into the security room using the code another player found in the employee breakroom. It felt like an Oceans 11 heist played out in real time.
I also loved the new VR-centric mechanics and interactions. Drilling into the vault requires a “skill check” sort of minigame to hone the drill to the materials on the door, while opening safes requires you to deftly turn the dial left and right to the correct positions using a combination you find somewhere in the office.
The amount of replayability in this game is far beyond what I had expected, especially with the massive skill tree and equipment list available. I also loved that skills weren’t just for you as an individual; there’s an entire skill tree devoted to team buffs, and plenty of skills that work just as well for you as an individual as they do for your team as a whole.
While I played this on my Meta Quest 3, the game is also available on Steam VR and will have official Steam Frame support with full crossplay between platforms. If you’re lucky, you can join the beta test, which starts today, August 20. Otherwise, look forward to the game launching sometime in the next few months. I know I sure am!
