Payday 2 continues its impressive resurgence with an all-new heist, out now

Payday 2 continues to outstrip its own successor with yet more additions from new developer Sidetrack Games. Payday creator Starbreeze handed the long-running heist FPS game over to the DLC studio in late 2025, and since then it's been working on proving that there's still life in the old dog yet. That started with the jump over to a new engine, which improved performance and reduced potential crashes while cutting the game's install size down dramatically. Now, we've got a fresh heist - the first since 2023.

Grab your Payday 2 crew and gear up for action, because the Under the Hammer DLC brings back iconic handler Bain for one more mission. Set "long before the events of the White House heist," it takes our troublemakers to the Pallasindro Dimora, an auction house in California that's well past its prime. Despite that, it's still both glamorous and well tooled-up, and it's filled with the collection of a master thief from the late '60s.

While there are plenty of pieces to browse, Sidetrack notes that most of them are relatively "unremarkable" - but we've actually got our sights on a clue hidden within one of them, which promises to lead to "a long-lost fortune." Bain explains the "old con artist hid his stolen loot and left clues about it for his family. What we were looking for was hidden inside an art piece. One of four, locked inside a vault. State of the art… at some point."

Alongside the heist comes some new equipment. The 'Comedy and Tragedy' masks are a pair of cosmetics based on the classic theatrical designs. The exotic Karussell Revolving Shotgun uses a high-power revolving cylinder-fed system to pump out high damage at speed, while the Last Call melee weapon is a comically oversized gavel. Finally comes the Vintage Sight weapon mod, earned through completing new achievements.

The Payday 2 Under the Hammer DLC is out now, priced at $4.99 / £3.99. Released alongside this, update 248 makes some small audio fixes and balance changes. Most notably among them, the Arbiter Grenade Launcher's fragmentation ammo damage is increased from 480 to 500, allowing it to one-shot light swat with a direct input.