Payday 3 launches 2,670 days after it was announced, and it's day one on Game Pass

Update, June 11: Payday 3 was officially unveiled at the Xbox Games Showcase with a flashy trailer showing the first look at gameplay.

The game is set to launch on September 21, 2023, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

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A new leak suggests that after more than seven years of waiting, the Payday 3 release date will finally arrive on September 21, 2023.

That's according to Aggiornamenti Lumia, a Twitter account with a reliable track record of leaks based on back-end data on the Microsoft Store. September 21 could be a placeholder date, but it's looking likely that Payday 3 will finally be out in just a few months' time. The account suggests that June 11 could be the date of the official announcement, which would line up with the Xbox Games Showcase 2023.

Developer Starbreeze had already been teasing big things for patient Payday 3 fans, promising a gameplay reveal in the summer. Between the Xbox show on June 11 and Summer Game Fest 2023 on June 8, we're likely to see that reveal very soon.

Starbreeze announced that Payday 3 was in development way back on May 30, 2016, and September 21 will mark a whopping 2,670 days between announcement and launch. That's not the longest record ever - Duke Nukem Forever exists, after all - but suffice to say that Payday fans have been waiting a long, long time for this follow-up.

It's been a worrisome wait, too, with legal and financial troubles at Starbreeze leaving the future of the company - much less the game - seeming uncertain. But after Starbreeze secured funding for Payday 3 back in 2021 it committed to releasing the game in 2023, and it seems the studio is very keen to meet that commitment.

The E3 2023 schedule continues rolls on, even without a proper E3 to hold it all.