Payday 2 rebuilt on 64-bit engine; install size cut 63%

Sidetrack Games has begun a major technical overhaul of Payday 2, rebuilding the game on a 64-bit Diesel 3.0 engine and moving rendering from DirectX 9 to DirectX 11. An open beta for the engine upgrade starts June 30 and runs through the end of July.

Nine months after taking over live support from the original developer, Sidetrack rewrote large parts of the game’s code base to run natively on 64-bit systems. The studio said the change should stop long-standing out-of-memory crashes and reduce memory pressure on graphics cards.

The rendering change to DirectX 11 is intended to use less texture memory on GPUs; Sidetrack does not promise visual improvements from the switch. The developer also revised the game’s packaging and bundling system, shrinking the installed footprint from 86 GB to 32 GB, a 63 percent reduction. Players who join the Diesel 3.0 beta will need to re-download the game. Sidetrack recommends installing Payday 2 on an SSD for faster load times.

The open beta will be available through Steam’s game properties under the game versions and betas menu. Sidetrack said it will publish full participation instructions at the beta launch.

Sidetrack asked modders to test and update their mods during the beta. Lead Engine and Tools Developer Leon Theodoridis confirmed the studio will provide help with new file formats where possible and encouraged modders to repair compatible mods. He acknowledged that “with such a substantial engine change, sadly it’s inevitable that some mods will break.”

Payday 2 launched in 2013 and remains among the most-played cooperative shooters on PC, often peaking near 30,000 concurrent players on Steam. Its successor has averaged roughly 1,000 concurrent players. Sidetrack says the technical update is intended to reduce hardware demands and improve stability for the game’s player base.