How to play Payday 3 crossplay with friends

Payday 3 crossplay and cross platform with friends — (Image credit: Starbreeze)

Payday 3 crossplay and cross-platform compatibility means you can link up with friends and take on heists together, regardless of which platforms or consoles they may be using, and these connections are managed through the shared Nebula accounts that you create when beginning the game. Thankfully this process is pretty straightforward and doesn't take a criminal mastermind to coordinate, so if you're ready to start heisting with your friends then we're here to walk you through using Payday 3 crossplay to get you up and running.

How to play crossplay in Payday 3 and join friends on other consoles

To play Payday 3 crossplay and join your friends on other consoles, you need to do the following:

When starting up Payday 3, both you and your friends need to make a connected Starbreeze/Nebula account (keep note of the Username you used)
You will also need to choose to opt in or out of crossplay, just after when you're asked about Payday 3 Telemetry (of course to play with friends on other consoles, you need to opt in - though this choice can be reverted from the settings menu at any time).
Head to the main menu of Payday 3 and open the social menu, marked at the bottom.
Select "Search Users" and enter your friend's Nebula Username.
Pick your friend(s) from the resultant search list and send a friend request.
They will then have to accept the invite from their own social menu under the "Incoming Friends Requests" section.
At this point, you will each be listed on each other's social menu when online. Select the friend and invite them to a party to begin playing co-op crossplay!

You can play with up to three friends at a time in Payday 3, with any empty slots filled either by random players, if you choose a public lobby, or by bots controlled by the game. We definitely recommend getting a reliable group of friends together if you can - at time of writing Payday 3 doesn't have built-in voice chat, which makes coordinated cooperation difficult to say the least, and the AI bots are very limited in their ability, just about able to shoot and occasionally revive downed players before their brains overheat. Playing with friends isn't just more fun, it's the best chance you have of actually making it out successfully.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.