Payday 3’s stealth gameplay trailer was so sneaky that everyone missed it
Mission accomplished, I guess?
Payday 3 has been back in the spotlight ahead of its September launch, making an appearance in the (Xbox green) limelight at last month’s Xbox Games Showcase - and then in the crosshairs of fans annoyed that you’ll always need to be online to play. There was actually another reveal for the game in recent days, too - but it snuck out so quietly that nobody realised it was there at first.
Payday devs Starbreeze decided to have a bit of fun with the reveal of Payday 3’s stealth mechanics, releasing a stealth gameplay trailer in suitably secretive fashion. The only way to see the latest trailer was to start watching the previous gameplay trailer on the official Payday website, before turning the player’s volume down - revealing the hidden stealth trailer instead. The trailer would also appear if you visited the page using the Incognito mode of Google Chrome, known for its use in, uh, clandestine browsing.
Sneaking out a sneaky stealth trailer is very fun in concept, but Starbreeze did a little too good of a job in making the trailer stealthy. That is, nobody realised it was there for a number of days.
Somebody at Starbreeze clearly got a bit frustrated that all that cleverness had gone to waste, eventually taking to the official Payday Twitter account to point fans in the direction of the secret trailer.
After teasing “for a community who claims to love easter eggs, you sure are taking a while finding our latest one”, they then decided to post the Vogon equivalent of marketing copy in a Twitter poem that opined “You did nothing wrong, but we've waited so long”, before nudging fans to “Start at the page, turn down the gage [sic]” and then urging them to “drop the burrito” - a frankly bizarre rhyme on “Incognito”.
The stealth trailer shows off the players’ crims doing some silent takedowns and lasering their way through the glass of an art gallery exhibit to steal paintings and sculptures, before making a quiet escape back through the roof and across a zipline. It’s familiar but flashy-looking stuff, even if it ultimately arrived with more of a whimper than a bang.