{"id":1617658,"date":"2026-06-26T17:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/YV4Q8eurBjL6mAooS2StUZ"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:59:07","slug":"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","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/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\/","title":{"rendered":"As its much newer sequel struggles, the 13-year-old Payday 2 is getting a &#8216;massive engine upgrade&#8217; that improves performance and cuts the install size in half"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<p>Back in 2025, Starbreeze turned its venerable heist-shooter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/payday-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">Payday 2<\/a> over to a new studio, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/fps\/starbreeze-hands-off-payday-2-to-a-another-developer-as-it-goes-all-in-on-trying-to-salvage-the-beleaguered-payday-3\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sidetrack Games<\/a>, so it could focus exclusively on trying to salvage the still-struggling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/payday-3\/\" target=\"_blank\">Payday 3<\/a>. Today we got our first look at the fruits of those efforts, and it&#8217;s big news\u2014not for Payday 3, to be clear, but for Payday 2, which is getting a major overhaul to its game engine.<\/p>\n<p>The engine update will see Payday 2 ported to a 64-bit architecture, which should eliminate out-of-memory crashes that have persisted over the years, and upgraded to DirectX 11 rendering\u2014that won&#8217;t make the game look any better but it will use significantly less VRAM and thus run better on lower-end hardware. The install size has also been reduced by more than half, from 86GB to 32GB.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-video\" data-nosnippet >\n<div class=\"video-aspect-box\"><iframe data-lazy-priority=\"high\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/i-zlUAbBl0M\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The downside to all of this will sound familiar: As Leon from Sidetrack Games says in the video, &#8220;Sadly, it&#8217;s inevitable that some mods will break.&#8221; He encouraged mod makers to &#8220;repair what can be repaired&#8221; during the beta test for the engine upgrade, and promised that &#8220;we will be there to help out with new file formats where we can.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And yes, there will be a beta test for those who want to check out the engine overhaul before it&#8217;s fully cooked: It&#8217;s set to start on June 30 and run until the end of July, and will be open to everyone who wants in. Details on that\u2014including how to get in, I would assume\u2014will be posted on the 30<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-amazon-prime-day-pc-gaming-deals\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>We&#8217;re keeping track of all the Amazon Prime Day PC gaming deals here<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For now, the pressing question is the same as it ever was: What does this mean for Payday 3? Payday 2 continues to fly high on Steam while its supposed successor lags far behind with a small fraction of players.<\/p>\n<p>And while shunting Payday 2 off to Sidekick was ostensibly meant to enable Starbreeze to &#8220;focus on Payday as a whole and Payday 3 in particular,&#8221; all we&#8217;ve really seen since then from the newer game are crossovers with PUBG and Roblox, and the launch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paydaythegame.com\/news\/payday3\/2026\/03\/p2p-live\/\" target=\"_blank\">peer-to-peer support<\/a>\u2014which is always good, yes, but also makes me wonder if Starbreeze is weighing whether those dedicated servers it&#8217;s maintaining are really worth it. As we said when the Payday game in Roblox went live, Starbreeze <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/fps\/starbreeze-hasnt-declared-payday-3-dead-yet-but-its-launching-yet-another-spin-off-this-year-this-time-on-roblox\/\" target=\"_blank\">hasn&#8217;t declared Payday 3 dead yet<\/a>, but it sure does seem to be paying a lot of attention to other things. <\/p>\n<div style=\"min-height: 250px;\">\n<div class=\"kwizly-quiz kwizly-ORV41O\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <script src=\"https:\/\/kwizly.com\/embed\/ORV41O.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"product\"><a data-dimension112=\"2389d574-525c-4735-ba00-ed2579bf2c57\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"van-image-figure \" >\n<div class='image-full-width-wrapper'>\n<div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:661px;\">\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:98.94%;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"6offQUY4CXebir2TC27dMd\" name=\"kingdom come 2 square\" caption=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/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.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"661\" height=\"654\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" credit=\"\" class=\"\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/new-pc-games-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-dimension112=\"2389d574-525c-4735-ba00-ed2579bf2c57\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" data-dimension25=\"\"><strong>2026 games<\/strong><\/a>: All the upcoming games<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Our all-time favorites<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-50-best-free-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Free PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Freebie fest<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-fps-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best FPS games<\/strong><\/a>: Finest gunplay<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-rpgs-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best RPGs<\/strong><\/a>: Grand adventures<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-co-op-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best co-op games<\/strong><\/a>: Better together<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/fps\/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\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2025, Starbreeze turned its venerable heist-shooter Payday 2 over to a new studio, Sidetrack Games, so it could focus exclusively on trying to salvage the still-struggling Payday 3. Today we got our first look at the fruits of those efforts, and it&#8217;s big news\u2014not for Payday 3, to be clear, but for Payday 2, which is getting a major overhaul to its game engine. The engine update will see Payday 2 ported to a 64-bit architecture, which should eliminate out-of-memory crashes that have persisted over the years, and upgraded to DirectX 11 rendering\u2014that won&#8217;t make the game look any better but it will use significantly less VRAM and thus run better on lower-end hardware. The install size has also been reduced by more&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/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\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1617659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[91,748],"class_list":["post-1617658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc-gamer","tag-fps","tag-games"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>As its much newer sequel struggles, the 13-year-old Payday 2 is getting a &#039;massive engine upgrade&#039; that improves performance and cuts the install size in half | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Back in 2025, Starbreeze turned its venerable heist-shooter Payday 2 over to a new studio, Sidetrack Games, so it could focus exclusively on trying to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/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\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"As its much newer sequel struggles, the 13-year-old Payday 2 is getting a &#039;massive engine upgrade&#039; that improves performance and cuts the install size in half | Arcader News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Back in 2025, Starbreeze turned its 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