Payday 2 gets a new DLC subscription service, and it's a pretty good deal but a lot of players are mad anyway

With Payday 3 still struggling badly, Starbreeze has made the surprising and somewhat confusing announcement that it has launched a brand-new subscription service for its predecessor Payday 2—which, for the record, is still going gangbusters.

Payday 2 has been operating for 12 years now, and in that time it's racked up an awful lot of DLC. This is, I kid you not, just a partial list from Steam:

It's a massive collection that would cost hundreds of dollars to purchase in total—not an issue if you've been playing for years and slowly amassing the stuff, but an awfully heavy load for newer players.

That's where the Payday 2 subscription option comes in: For $5 per month, you get "full access to all available Payday DLCs." You can subscribe and cancel as you like—any progress earned in DLC content will be maintained even if you cancel your sub, so you can pick up where you left off if you resubscribe in the future—and all content will remain available for individual purchase as it's always been.

"With more than a decade of content behind Payday 2, we want to give players greater flexibility in how they experience the game," Starbreeze's head of commercial Gustav Nisser said. "The subscription service makes it simple and cost-effective to enjoy everything Payday 2 has to offer—whether you’re new to the game or returning to explore DLCs you haven’t yet played. At the same time, all existing DLCs remain available for purchase as before. This is about giving players more choice."

Initial reactions to the announcement have not been overly positive: Some players seemed to be under the impression that Payday 2 DLC would require a subscription going forward, while others are clearly still mad about Payday 3 or the idea of subscription services in general.

There are also some who take issue with the fact that just a few weeks prior to rolling out the subscription option, Starbreeze significantly increased the price of the Payday 2 Infamous Collection, which includes all previously-released DLC (minus any content that's no longer available for purchase), from $118 to $170—although in a lot of cases the main complaint is that the change was made without any public announcement.

For others, though, subscribing is a sensible option: Steam user Innocuousuk, for instance, wrote, "Getting back into the game right now, and not having any DLCs it's more cost-effective for me to just grab the subscription for a month or two whenever I get back into playing every so often."

Another user by the name of Blockhead pointed out that while Starbreeze is almost certainly trying to funnel people toward the subscription option rather than the Infamous Collection, it's ultimately a better deal anyway: "Even before the price hike, I'd have to be subbed for about two years before the prices equal out. Unless you plan to be playing Payday 2 for a very long time, and must have all the DLCs, the subscription option is vastly better value for money."

I think the subscription service is a good idea, personally: What I find more interesting is the context in which it's taking place. Despite ongoing work on Payday 3 following its disastrous launch in 2023, player counts are abysmal: SteamDB indicates there are currently fewer than 500 people playing on Steam. Payday 2, meanwhile, has more than 32,000 players banging away on it. That's a hell of a difference, and it made me wonder whether Starbreeze is throwing up its hands and shifting focus back to the game that people are actually playing.

Nisser, Starbreeze's head of commercial, told me that's not the case. "This has no direct impact on ongoing work on Payday 3," he said. "As our new CEO Adolf [Kristjansson] has mentioned in recent interviews, we are increasing our focus on Payday as a whole and Payday 3 in particular. We're hoping to share more about our plans for Payday 3 in particular towards the end of the Payday Anniversary Celebration that we're running these next two weeks."

Nisser said the intent of the Payday 2 subscription service is twofold: To make it easier for new players to sort through the massive amount of Payday 2 DLC currently available, and to accommodate players in countries "where alternative payment models (like subscriptions) are more popular."

"What we wanted to do here is try offering the alternative of a subscription for players who might prefer that way of paying for content," Nisser said. "We don't intend to remove anything, just add this option."

As for the price increase on the Infamous Collection, Nisser described it as "unfortunate timing" but said there's no connection to the subscription service. He also acknowledged that Starbreeze "dropped the ball" on keeping players informed about the price hike: "Going forward we aim to do better in communicating things like this."