Fast Travel Games' Chief Creative Officer Erik Odeldahl took questions from the Payday community subReddit about co-op heist shooter Payday: Aces High.
Payday: Aces High was first announced at the Spring 2026 VR Games Showcase from veteran developer Fast Travel Games (Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice, Action Hero).
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Payday: Aces High reveal trailer
Like any Reddit AMA, questions were asked and answered multiple times, and of course Odeldahl had to be cagey with topics he could not comment on. For convenience, we will break this down by general topic with Erik's direct responses.
On the possibility of a PlayStation VR2 port
We all love the PSVR2. The thing is, [we're] a pretty small studio and decided to first focus on Quest3 & Steam, with cross play support. We are not closing any doors on a PSVR2 version though!... Please keep praying for PSVR2 support, and we'll see if we have the opportunity to make it happen. No promises though!
How Aces High connects to other Payday games
This group of heisters put on their masks for the first time when the game begins. Their handler is an old friend of Shade's, and it's via those contacts that they are brought into the clown fold.
The Aces story itself is a new one, and doesn't require you to know anything about Payday in advance, but if you do, you'll find a ton of things you recognize.
The Queen of Hearts knows Shade personally. It is very likely the OG gang would have to approve of another masked gang of heisters, or else they'd might become annoyed
You'll meet the Shield, the Bulldozer and Snipers at launch. Rumor has it that some of the locations are patrolled by drones of different kinds too.
Game design
The game will require an internet connection, but you will be able to play solo with AI team mates!
All our characters are fully voiced. The Aces (Hearts, Clubs, Spades & Diamonds) as well as their handler The Queen of Hearts and our antagonist, Warren Jupiter.
Currently there is no plan for voice activated commands. We did experiment with it a bit during early development, so I won't say it's never gonna happen, but definitely not for launch.
For this game we chose to go with hands only, because we found it suited both the slower stealth, and the fast paced gameplay really well. Getting full body right, and not janky, is very time consuming, and we wanted to spend that time on things we felt were are more important for the experience.
The game fully supports both seated and standing play. The team plays using both every day! We will also have options for snap/smooth turning, blinders etc. You can expect the usual stuff! In addition to that, we allow the player to choose if they want to do reloads and chambering using gestures or a shortcut button.
Gameplay and replayability
You will have a safe house as a base of operations in the game. This is where you plan your heists, practice shooting your guns or try out new mods. We'll see how we can visualize all the money you steal for you.
You will be able to select which mask, outfit and gloves you're wearing, but most of the visual stuff has to be unlocked by completing heists and other challenges in the game!
We have four main categories (ARs, SMGs, pistols & shotguns). Each has three or four unique models each, as well as two variant versions. You can also buy red dot sights, laser sights for some of the models. Most pistols can be fitted with a silencer.
All weapons support manual reloads and chambering. There is a button interaction for it as well, which takes roughly the same time to perform, so it is all up to you to choose how you want to handle it.
All heists have a healthy amount of randomization in them at launch! We are of course hoping that the game takes off so we can put more stuff into it. We have a design for something similar to Infamy, but we'll have to wait with talking about that for a while. Aces High handles progression and unlocks a bit differently, and we want to make sure that whatever we decide to add to the game post-launch doesn't break the balance.
We will have both free and paid DLC, as well as community challenges where you all work together to unlock new stuff. Our intent is to not split up the player base, so new heists will be free.
You can throw all kinds of things. We're not 100% sure you will be able to throw ammo etc. We did have it in the game for a while, but it led to weird complications where you often picked up empty clips, and it felt pretty buggy. We still haven't abandoned it though, and are thinking of ways to make it work fluidly and intuitively. The cool thing about working on a living multiplayer game, is that features can be added or tweaked after launch too.
Payday: Aces High can be wishlisted now on Steam and Meta Quest.
