Trivia / PAYDAY 2

• Acting for Two: Mixing this trope with Inksuit Actor, Josh Lenn lends his face to Hoxton, but he at the same time is the voice actor of the GO Bank blackmailer and Bodhi.
• Artist Disillusionment:
  • When fans massively complained about nearly everything (and, to a lesser extent, still do) after the game went live, an Overkill developer had to openly tell everyone to stop acting like jerks towards them and the rest of the community because it doesn't make the community look good overall. Sadly, the fans trashed Overkill even more in response. Not only did they accuse them of withholding content for DLC (and many people still argue this point even today), they even blasted Overkill for scolding them, even though the fan base threw the first punch.
  • The fact that three DLC packs (one free and two purchasable ones) seem to be only available for PC, as of now, the delay and no feedback from Overkill of when consoles will see the light of the promised DLC, have created quite a few complaints. Despite further promises, this was resigned to "when it's ready", leading to further Overkill hate — even though the problem is primarily on the side of Microsoft and Sony frequently throwing up roadblocks. While the first 3 DLC packs were finally released for the consoles, the console versions of the game are still massively behind the PC version for the rest of the content and Overkill still says that there's problems (none which are specified) getting the rest of the DLC out. Unfortunately Overkill since stated that further attempts to get the remaining DLC onto consoles has been scrapped, as they cannot get the content to run on the aging hardware. As such, they've moved on to re-releasing the game on the new generation of consoles (Xbox One, PS4) with all the DLC released up to and including the Bomb Heists (putting it just ahead of the PC's Game of the Year Edition bundle) packaged in with the game itself.
  • David Goldfarb, the former game director and otherwise volatile personality, was very ban happy on his Twitter account whenever any fan annoyed him. While he did have to endure the usual level of bile that the toxic fan base spewed his way, it caused him to lash out against anyone who got on his bad side and that includes people who were simply asking a question that was already answered or something he refused to answer. He's even admitted to having a Humans Are Bastards mentality after this.
  • Bo Andersson, the CEO of Starbreeze (who also owns Overkill/Starbreeze), once got annoyed by the large amounts of complaining from fans in regards to the flashbang mechanic, so he told people that if they couldn't handle something that was made the way it was intentionally, then he would consider making a "baby mode" difficulty and that it was also "your opinion, my choice" when it came to his decision on the flashbangs.^note This became Hilarious in Hindsight when the developers later changed the flashbangs to make a loud beeping sound and flash red before going off, also allowing players to destroy or avoid it before it goes off, just the same as the AI can set off players' grenades early. Fans reacted by spouting an inversion of Bo's infamous quote, saying "Our choice, your opinion". Bo's attitude came off as a massive shock towards fans who played the original PAYDAY since they remembered Bo being a lot more friendly and engaging with the fan base and had never insulted them directly before. Bo's poor attitude supposedly caused his brother, Ulf Andersson (who served as the face model and voice actor for Wolf), to leave Overkill to form his own indie game development studio.
• Ascended Fanon: The majority of every new piece of content released into the game is based on demands and wishes by fan base. Examples include and are not limited to melee weapons, hand grenades, a heist made only for stealth, a heist rivaling First World Bank, getting old Hoxton back, etc.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: With more than 24 DLC packs released within 2 years and more to come, the game has effectively become Overkill's Cash Cow and the addition of microtransactions only adds to it. A lot of players have been turned off by this. This is even more evident when you check out Overkill's website, where aside from Storm and The Walking Dead, every other game listed is either PAYDAY: The Heist, PAYDAY 2 or a PAYDAY 2 DLC. With news of development being resumed on PAYDAY 2 in October 2019, it appears that the game is the only profitable source of revenue for the entire studio.
• Cast the Expert: Sort of. Dragan's VA actually attempted what would have been the fifth-largest bank robbery in world history^* In terms of currency stolen, anyway; the job itself wasn't that complicated or impressive. when he was 21, but ultimately failed. He was arrested and given a three and a half year prison sentence, during which he reformed, becoming a sports consultant and later an actor.
• Character Outlives Actor: Mira Furlan passed away in 2021 due to contracting West Nile Virus, meaning that any future appearances of her character, The Butcher, are unlikely to ever happen, not in this game at least.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The Wolf Pack DLC for the second game was given for free to people who already owned the DLC of the same name for the first game, as a Mythology Gag given the sequel's version included the same heists and similar weapons. For some reason, people took this to mean that, until the release of the Ultimate Edition that let you purchase all the DLC at once, the only way to get the second game's Wolf Pack was by owning the first game's version, which was simply never true.
• Defictionalization: Overkill released a store during Crimefest that sells a real-life sempai-Dozer bobblehead and loot bag.
• Descended Creator:
  • Simon Viklund, the sound and music composer, voices Bain and the Cloaker unit.
  • Ulf Andersson, one of the co-creators of Overkill, voices Wolf and Alex the pilot.
  • Almir Listo, the lead game director/producer, voiced Vlad's drunk brother-in-law and also voices (and portrays him in the planning photo and Breakfast in Tijuana trailer) the pilot in the GO Bank heist.
  • Ilija Petrusic, the lead level/mission designer, voices Illja the Sniper.
• Development Gag: The Yacht heist was teased with a screenshot taken from the first games' files being displayed on the safehouses' projector; said heist was cut from the first game for unknown reasons, but the assets were carried over into this game, and would eventually be made as part of the John Wick Heists DLC.
• Dummied Out:
  • Kento has dogtags placed inside his model, revealing the name of this fearless mercenary and his relationship to the rest of the cast.
  • Bain has some voice chatter after completing Safe House Raid, something he alludes to at the end of the heist, but which doesn't play in-game. He also has lines for finding the giant toothbrush on Panic Room too, among other things.
  • Bile has voice lines that went unused, which seem to imply there would be escapes involving him, judging from him mention SWAT helicopters tailing him and at times sounding panicked, complete with a Rapid-Fire "No!". In the actual game, escapes only happen when Twitch is involved.
• Enforced Method Acting: How do you get the most realistic sounding drunk voice lines in a video game? Get properly sloshed first. Almir was fed enough alcohol to make him incoherent enough to be funny then went into the recording booth with Simon for Bubba's White Xmas lines. Also, ice cream was involved.
• Flip-Flop of God:
  • During the previews of the game, game director David Goldfarb stated that PAYDAY 2 would have 17 heists. David then corrected himself on a later date and said that there would be 17 levels broken into 30 stages with each "day" counting as a level and he also counted the escape sequences as a level. Other developers have either upheld the statement or said that David made a mistake and no one seems to be sure what the true answer is. Either way, Overkill is still heckled to give everyone the "promised" 17 heists, despite the fact that currently, the free heists alone more than surpass the promised 17 levels.
  • Microtransactions. When the fandom grew worried that the increasing amount of weapon and character pack DLCs would lead to microtransactions, Overkill assured everyone that it would not happen. Fast forward to the 2015 Crimefest and the first unlocked reward was weapon skins that could only be obtained by paying money for a drill to unlock the safe the skin was in. Not only are the skin drops randomized, but skins also have a chance of giving guns stat boosts. Needless to say, the community was less than pleased.
    • Fast forward again to 2016, and the 100th update for the game that, among other things, killed the microtransactions.^note Technically, the microtransactions are still in the game, but with the safes no longer dropping after heists, the drills purchased with the microtransactions will only be useful on the safes that existed prior to the update. Any future safes post-100th update will not require drills to open, and as such will be entirely free. Eventually, most the drills became safes that can be opened without drills, and those that did require drills to open were once again available for circulation.
  • This was even the case for the game's further development. OVERKILL had stated that, with the release of the White House, that full-on new content for PAYDAY 2 had ceased development, leaving bug fixes as the only form of 'content' the game would receive. This was contradicted in October 2019, where it was announced that, yes, the game was receiving full support again.
    • This was mostly forced by circumstances, however. Overkill has initially planned to put PAYDAY 2 on the backburner while their Walking Dead game became the focus. Trouble is, the game came out in a bad state, leading the Walking Dead rights holder Skybound to terminate the contract. Unable to sell the game, Overkill pulled it from the stores. This, coupled with other ill-advised investments ^note a game engine which didn't work as expected, a VR headset that only had a middling success and publishing deals for games that either got delayed or flopped, pushed Overkill and their parent Starbreeze to the verge of bankruptcy. After attracting enough investment to keep afloat, the company had to restart the development of new PAYDAY 2 content, as that was the only property they had that was sure to bring money. Meanwhile, the previously-rumored Payday 3 is now confirmed to be in active development.
• Life Imitates Art: On March 19, 2020, the police seized 36 weapons, a bulletproof vest, cash, police equipment, drugs ammunition cases and masks of the original four members of the PAYDAY Gang. No safehouse though, and only two people were arrested, and the masks were found to be bootlegs.
• Lying Creator: When fans complained about how flash bangs appeared too often, Overkill/Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson replied that the flashbangs were to discourage players from camping too much. Players quickly cried bullshit when they proven that not only do flashbangs have specific spawn points on each map, but they also go off as long as a player is in the area, regardless of whether or not they were moving or camping.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • A glitch in the beta of PAYDAY 2 caused a mask pattern called Electric Center to be awarded to players at the end of a heist nearly every single time, which caused a Memetic Mutation in the community. Bain in episode 4 of the web series references the Electric Center.
  • During the first game's secret event, trolling players would ask, "Have you tried answering the phone?" whenever someone tried to come up with a solution to solve the secret. When you first play the safehouse in PAYDAY 2, a phone rings and your objective is "Answer the phone." When you walk up to it, it stops ringing, and Bain, who is watching your every move, says, "See? You didn't even have to answer the phone!"
  • Every time Overkill teases new content, the community would shout "All aboard the hype train!" and followed it up with a video of the PAYDAY crew riding a literal train. The Spring Break 2015 event takes this meme to another level where Overkill made the event dedicated to hyping the Spring Break Event called The Hype Train.
  • The music track released alongside the Lab Rats heist is "Donacdum", which is made from samplings of Houston's memetic "Don't act dumb!" line.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • The fan-made PAYDAY 2 skill calculator gives exact figures on boosts, bonuses, and total costs to help players plan out their tree; after a strong, positive response online, it was fully endorsed by OVERKILL, before they later implemented several aspects of it^note Skills and perks give actual figures now (e.g. "carry bags faster" is now "carry bags 50% faster"), but players cannot calculate total costs when planning a perk tree. into the game itself.
  • HoxHud was a HUD mod made by fans that not only enhances user experience,^ex. Shows remaining drill time, hostage count remains during assaults, pager and bodybag amounts are displayed, actions have times rather than just a progress circle, a sprint bar is added... but it also had a decent anti-cheat system, which attempts to block extra loot or gear spawns, and sticks a warning title above cheaters heads (presumably so honest hosts can identify and kick them). OVERKILL not only approved of the mod, but they merged parts of the HoxHud anti-cheat system to use with their own official one.
  • In the trailer for The Big Bank, we follow a civilian trying to get a loan to start his business: selling bobbleheads of the Bulldozer. The bobblehead, which has blushing cheeks and a love-heart painted on the faceplate, is based on the Senpai-Dozer fanmod, which does exactly that.
    • The Bulldozer bobblehead gets another cameo in the form of a box label within the teaser of the Hotline Miami crossover.
    • And it appears once again as part of the Stamp of Victory◊ for reaching the final milestone for Crimefest of 1.5 million group members.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: On October 1st, 2020, the Scarface Character Pack was removed from sale on Steam and Consoles for licensing reasons. This is a particularly odd example, as the Scarface Heists Pack is still up for sale, and by extension that allows them to use iconography and the name of the IP (so losing the Scarface name and trademark is out of the running too), so it seems to pertain to Scarface himself being the issue. Overkill haven't clarified what the issue is, but the theories are two-fold; either the voice actor's contract expired, or Universal wanted to charge more money that Overkill didn't have to continue using the character.
• Teasing Creator: Almir, the producer of the game, has a habit of answering questions related to the game with a ;) if said questions asks for stuff like future content. Even on the Crimefest website Overkill set up to promote growth in the Steam group, the final content unlock for the 1.5 million members milestone has only a ;).
• Technology Marches On: The fact that the security guards use pagers in the 2010s is really saying something.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Between the first and second game, the series has went through shades of replacement/returning actors (mostly due to negative feedback):
  • Chains changed voice actor, but due to the backlash from changing the characters, this was partially reverted so only his voice and face have changed; despite being portrayed by Damion Poitier, he remains the same character.
  • Dallas' game model and real-life actor are still replacement Eric Etebari, but as Simon Kerr's schedule allowed him to return, he has the same voice from the first game.
  • Hoxton's change was originally this, though it was rewritten into a Legacy Character plot thread, meaning Old Hoxton was arrested and Dallas' brother took up his mask, taking on the different codename Houston once old Hoxton was freed.
    • Also applies to the web series, as the physical models and some voices were subject to Retcon, all to allow consistency between the game and its teaser web series. This becomes apparent in the Hoxton Breakout trailer, as while the English dubbing (obviously) isn't visible with masked characters, Old Hoxton's face actor Josh Lenn can be seen miming lines spoken by VA Pete Gold.
    • The same thing happens again in the Hardcore Henry trailer, though with Hoxtons face covered up with a bloody white pillowcase, which was done specifically to avoid this problem. Problem is however, is that the voice still doesn't line up to his actions on-screen, making it more obvious that it was dubbed over.
    • The DLC character Clover went through numerous voice actors from her reveal trailer to release. In a strange twist on this, Overkill has announced that her original voice actor will still be in the game, playing Bonnie.
  • Most of the guest characters from movies, though more or less modeled on their movie actors, are voiced by different people for logistics reasons.
    • John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is voiced by Dave Fouquette.
    • Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez) is voiced by Josh Lenn.
    • Scarface (Al Pacino) is voiced by André Sogliuzzo, Pacino's hand-picked choice for Tony Montana's voice.
• Role Reprise:
  • Lance Reddick returns from the John Wick films to voice Charon.
  • Sharlto Copley returns to voice Jimmy.
  • André Sogliuzzo, who voiced Scarface/Tony Montana in Scarface: The World Is Yours returns to voice Tony, though he was already The Other Darrin for Al Pacino.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: PAYDAY 2 has some meth cooks on day 1 of Rats that get shot by the Mendoza gang when you enter the house. Many people say that if you're fast enough, you can save the cooks and cook the meth without the cops coming. However, the death of the cooks is completely scripted; if you reach the house fast enough, you can see the cooks instantly slump over without any of the enemies shooting them at all. Not only that, but Bain also tells the crew that the cops were watching the house the whole time, so stealth is impossible.
  • Jiro was rumored to say "stupid son!" in Japanese upon spotting Kento in the Henry's Rock heist. This was quickly disproven; Jiro and all other heisters will use the lines normally used for finding a keychain-locked door in Bank Heist (all of which are cries of frustration) when encountering the mercenary.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Safe House feature was intended to be customizable from the start, using the Offshore Account money to buy various upgrades (potentially with mechanical benefits) and aesthetic changes so that each player had a unique safehouse, that their friends could view and potentially play together in. It was cut from the initial release and suffered from chronic Schedule Slip to the point of being regarded as Vaporware by the community...until 2016, where OVERKILL completely replaced the old safe house with a much more elaborate and customizable one (after yet another Schedule Slip - originally it was planned for Spring 2016, but the release was quietly delayed until it was later released October 8th as part of Crimefest 2016).
  • Formerly, the Joker skill involved the Mastermind rigging a bomb to the enemy and telling them they can either help them or go kaboom. This was removed before the game released because of the obviously shady moral implications of doing this, but the enemy responses to it were left in the game, making it seem like the Mastermind is forcing the enemy to help by being really mean to them.
  • OVERKILL initially planned to have heists that had up to 7 days, which is still shown on the lobby interface. The developers have stated that they won't be doing heists taking place over more than 3 to 4 days at most, due to concerns over disconnects stopping progress and making the heists too long for players to complete.
  • A number of unused weapon mods exist in the files, such as vertical foregrips and drum magazines. According to OVERKILL, they will remain unused for the foreseeable future due to engine limitations regarding weapon mods and animations.
  • Dataminers have found code and a textured model◊ for an as-yet unused Veteran Cop enemy within the files. It remains to be seen if this character will show up in a future update or was scrapped completely. However, he can only be recovered through the Restoration Mod as a fully functional enemy, though.
  • Scraps of a Hollywood heist, along with references to a "Xeno rifle" were found in files added through various updates. Internal names used in the files suggests that this heist and its assets were eventually repurposed into the Scarface heist released in 2016.
  • Greta, a character from PAYDAY: The Web Series, was planned to be in the game as the sniper asset. Negative feedback from fans over her scenes in the web series caused OVERKILL to scrap those plans and replace her with Illja, though OVERKILL has stated that she could still appear in-game at some point.
  • The Yacht Heist added as part of the John Wick Heists Pack DLC in 2017 was initially intended as far back as the first game. Internal files referencing the heist existed since the game launched, suggesting the heist was heavily reworked throughout its development.
  • The Elephant was originally meant to be the contractor during the Hardcore Henry Heists, explicitly betraying Akan, but this was changed so Jimmy would be the contractor instead (as is the case in the Trailer). This was likely changed as it made more sense for Jimmy to be involved, rather than The Elephant, who acted surprisingly cowardly in the teaser.
  • After completing a Safehouse Raid, Bain mentions that he needs to make a call to cover the raid up (Captain Smith, the Mole he plants in Garret's taskforce), which there's dialogue for in the files. Likely removed as it went on for far too long and the implication of the phone call was enough to get the point across.
  • PAYDAY: Crime War was announced in 2018 as a mobile PVP-focused spinoff FPS. Then it was cancelled after the closed beta. Then it was uncancelled in 2022, although it was handed to a different developer, and instead the game aims to recapture the PAYDAY 2 experience with smaller maps and bite sized gameplay.

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