Quite a few years have gone by since the original announcement, but Starbreeze's co-op shooter Payday 3 has now finally been released. Unfortunately, it has done so alongside some serious server problems and an impressively tedious progression system that have mostly overshadowed the otherwise entertaining gameplay.

While the servers are likely to get fixed up in the next few weeks, getting the progression system into shape is going to take some serious effort as the current iteration is both grindy and unsatisfying. Basically, instead of getting experience by playing the game normally, the only way to gain experience and further your character is to complete challenges which are often very specific and also don't scale based on difficulty.

Even if you complete a full mission on the hardest setting available, you'll still get zero experience. It's entirely based on challenges, which as you might imagine, just incentivizes a lot of grinding of super low tier missions in order to get through the process as quickly as possible in order to unlock new toys to play around with. It's a rather silly system, and one I can only hope will be improved in the next few updates as it just doesn't fit this type of game.

My ramblings aside, if you're wondering what exactly Payday 3 even looks like in action, allow me to share with you the recently posted launch trailer. Have a gander:

You can learn more about Payday 3, as well as keep an eye out for any upcoming updates, over at Steam. Enjoy, and here's to hoping Starbreeze acts quickly as the game itself really is a lot of fun.