Payday: Aces High Could Be The Next Go

We went hands-on with Fast Travel Games’ Payday: Aces High at a recent media session. Read on for our thoughts.

James Tocchio and I played the first heist job with Erik and Kris from Fast Travel. James played on Meta Quest and I played on Steam. We were allowed to capture footage, so the clips below will show both of our perspectives side by side.

As Erik, the Game Director for Aces High, would explain to us later, Fast Travel leaned more in the arcade direction with the mechanics, letting players play fast and get caught up in the action as opposed to struggling with finicky precision. Grabbing loot is a good example of this. Big piles of loot, be it money, jewelry, or other objects of value, are grabbed and automatically transformed into duffel bags when pulled towards you. These bags slow your movement speed, leaving you reliant on your teammates to cover your escape. Smaller loot, like a single stack of money, is grabbed with the grab button and collected by holding the trigger button, ending with a satisfying ‘ka-chink’ sound effect as it explodes into falling coins. Gun reloading is manual, with new ammo over your shoulder, and thankfully jank-free.

Erik stressed to us not to put our masks on when we approached the bank. Doing so would trigger the guards immediately. Instead, we walked the exterior of the building first, peeking in windows to hopefully spot a safe or security code in one of the managers’ offices. We also noted a grapple hook spot for roof access if we had that tool unlocked. Our first run didn’t have an exterior fuse box to disable some of the cameras, but our second run (which ended badly) did.

Though the general layout of the bank is the same on each heist, the locations of security codes, loose loot, cameras and such are randomized as are the appearances of incursion options like the aforementioned fuse box and grapple hook to the roof, so no two runs are alike. Heists can be completed in full stealth and there is an extra reward for that, but Erik stressed this was very difficult to do.

One of us lingered a littletoo close to one of the guards, which set off alarms, the stealthy background music shifted to a rock track, and all hell broke loose. From this point, it was an intense scramble to get into the security office via security code and unlock the vault. The cops became progressively more difficult the longer we spent on the heist, eventually escalating to heavily armored tactical officers with stronger guns. The four of us fell into natural positions after the alarms went off, with some handling the guards while others looked for security codes and loot. This wasn’t planned. It just happened organically.

After accessing the vault and grabbing some loose money along the way, we called in a pneumatic drill that arrived via drone, an excellent touch of visual flair. The drill functions in three phases with an intuitive skill check via the handle. After looting the vault, we left by shooting out the back windows of the bank and tossed our bags down a nearby sewer to be picked up later. Another secured area gave us explosives to blow open the sewer access, where we collected our loot, shot our way through another round of guards, and escaped. Several of us were downed by gunfire during the fight and revived by a teammate using a health injector. Notably, this heist did not involve a hacking mechanic triggered via your watch that I saw in the tutorial. That will presumably come into play in bigger heists.

Start to finish, the whole run took about twenty minutes. There were secondary objectives, like leaving our Ace Gang calling cards, that we did not complete. At the end, you gain reputation points depending on your performance along with the money. There is an underlying story to Payday: Aces High, with the gang taking revenge on a crooked businessman who betrayed them. A character named The Queen narrates the details of each heist and advises the team in the heat of combat as to the next objectives, tying everything together. After the heist, we regrouped and looked at the plethora of unlockable skills, weapons, items, and abilities available. This along with the story campaign offers clear progression for players to keep returning to the game. I mentioned to Erik that I could see elements of a hero shooter a la Overwatch or Marvel Rivals in Aces High. Depending on the skills and weapons chosen, teammates could fall into natural roles. This will be something I explore in the full game.

Intuitive is the main takeaway here. Everything in the heist was quickly understood and this allowed us to play fast. Even with Erik giving instructions, James and I contextually picked up on what needed to be done and the natural teamwork, given I had never played a game with two people in the group and James and I have only played Forefront together, was excellent.

Simply put, Payday: Aces High is a tremendous amount of fun. There were some expected alpha build quirks. The guard and bank employee movements were stilted in places and some texture pop and flickering here and there, but we understood we were on an early build. The core of the game is outstanding though. If you enjoy co-op action, this game should absolutely be on your wishlist. Even in this early build, it is that good.