Payday 2's next update is "a massive undertaking" to modernize the FPS, stop crashes, and cut its install size by 60%

It's been nine months since Starbreeze handed the Payday 2 reins over to Sidetrack Games to continue supporting it, while the original developer focused on improving Payday 3. So far, the numbers are very much in Sidetrack's favor, with Payday 2 still routinely pulling 30,000-player peaks on Steam as its successor struggles to stay at just 1,000. Rather than simply rest easy, however, the new team is preparing for its biggest overhaul yet, transporting the heist shooter across to a fresh engine that should result in smoother gameplay at a massively reduced file size.

Arguably, Sidetrack had an easy enough job - Payday 2 already had over a decade of development under its belt when it was passed along, and remains among the most beloved co-op FPS games on PC. It is now 13 years old, however, and so the new shepherds are earning their keep by giving it a full under-the-hood makeover. Lead Engine and Tools Developer Leon Theodoridis confirms that the much-requested switch to a 64-bit engine is actually happening, and it'll kick off with an open beta at the end of June.

"We've seen all your comments, and they've been bugging us for quite a while," Theodoridis says with a smile. "You guys have practically been begging us to port the engine to 64-bit, reduce the game's file size, as well as make it run better in general on more modern hardware. Now, after nine months of development on Payday 2 at Sidetrack Games, I am finally able to share what we've been working on for so long."

This "massive engine upgrade" will be branded Diesel 3.0. "It's a massive rewrite of the entire code base," Theodoridis explains. He notes that the backend nature of this update means you might not immediately notice every single improvement that comes as a result, but you'll certainly benefit from a lot of them.

The first and most impactful change is the switch to the more modern 64-bit architecture, which should bring the plague of out-of-memory crashes to an end. Theodoridis calls this "by far one of the biggest requests over the last ten years." The rendering has moved from DX9 to DX11; "This will not lead to a visual improvement, but it'll use a lot less texture memory on your graphics card," he notes. That's especially good news if you're on older hardware, but everyone should benefit to some extent.

Making those changes means asking players to re-download the whole game, so Sidetrack 'took the opportunity to revamp the game's packaging and bundling system." The result of this is a reduction in install size from 86 GB down to just 32 GB - that's a 63% drop. If you weren't running the game on an SSD, Theodoridis recommends you now do so, as you should see more benefits from the faster loading times.

The Payday 2 Diesel 3.0 open beta begins on Tuesday June 30, and will run until the end of July. Full details on how to take part will be provided at launch, but I would expect that you'll be able to join through the 'game versions and betas' tab in the properties menu, accessed via your Steam library.

There's one small caveat. "With such a substantial engine change, sadly it's inevitable that some mods will break," Theodoridis notes. "During the beta period, we encourage modders to try and repair what can be repaired, and we will be there to help out with new file formats where we can." It's a small price to pay, but with all these promised improvements, likely a worthwhile one for most.