Behind the Scenes with Andrej #4 & OVERKILL Weapon Perks Dev Blog

May 16, 2026by OVERKILL_Adam

GamePatchNote Digest

PAYDAY 3 News — May 16, 2026

Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.

Andrej is back roaming the halls of the studio once again to share what’s coming next to PAYDAY!

In this Behind the Scenes, the developers talk about what players can expect in May, including the upcoming 3.5 Update, the brand-new Swedish Weapon Pack, and yes! The long awaited Zokas-17.

Overkill Weapon Perks Blog

Hi everyone, I’m Jimmy, a Senior Game Designer at Starbreeze. In this blog, I will take you through some of the changes we are making in Update 3.5 to Overkill Weapons and Overskills in PAYDAY 3.

Overskills was a major post-launch change to Overkill Weapons, altering how they play by introducing powerful perks. While the perks did increase the power of their respective weapon, some of the weapons’ identities were lost as they progressed through their skill lines. It also took choice away from you, giving no option to opt out of using a perk.

As such, we are retiring the old Overskill system and instead making the Overkill weapon customizable using weapon perks.

Overkill Weapons will now have customization options similar to regular weapons, with 2-3 slots where you can equip perk mods. Each slot offers a selection of perks unlocked with cash, with no restrictions beyond unlocking the weapon itself.

This change opens the door to more easily adding perks in the future without having to rebalance the whole weapon. We’ve removed some skills, added several, and baked a few into the base functionality of their respective weapons. For instance, the Mamba will no longer damage players or civilians regardless of perk selection. More details below.

While the total number of perks is higher, each weapon has fewer at any one time. To compensate, most of the weapons have received small buffs. We’ll be keeping a close eye on feedback following the update to address any potential issues.

While we were at it, we made two additional changes to the Overkill system:

First, we increased the rate at which your Overkill meter gains progress, giving you more frequent access to your Overkill weapon.
Second, we removed the cooldown between OVERKILL call-ins. This means you can call in your Overkill weapon whenever you need it. Combined, these changes ensure frequent and reliable access to your most powerful fighting tool.

Below we have listed all of the OVERKILL Weapons base behaviors, perk setup, and other changes you will experience in-game when Patch 3.5 drops, finishing with a full list of perks that the new Karl Alfred M606 from the Swedish Weapon Pack will be able to equip.

We look forward to your feedback!

HET-5 Red Fox

We have increased the ability in the perks to shoot through surfaces in the game leaning more into the single-target high damage fantasy where you as a player can pick off targets before they get to you and your team. We have also added some perks that should make this even stronger of a focused damage dealer.

Base	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2	Perk Slot 3
Semi-Automatic material rifle that can penetrate up to 3 surfaces equipped with a scope that can identify targets through walls.	Hard Collateral Performing a body shot with the HET deals 20% of the original shot’s damage and performing a headshot deals 60% of the original shot’s damage to all enemies within 3m of your target. This additional damage does not bypass enemy armor.	Dead Set Marked targets in your view take 30% extra damage from all damage sources. (This includes marked targets no matter how they were marked)	Revved Up Perks given from the HET-5 have an additional 15% increase in damage.
	Spotter All targets currently viewed through your HET scope are marked for your crew. When they are no longer in your line of sight, the marking ends. Other marking effects, such as manual marking from other players, will still be in effect.	Tungsten Core You can penetrate 5 additional surfaces.	DU Core You can penetrate 5 additional surfaces.

Marcom Mamba MGL

The core idea with the mamba is its efficiency of dealing with groups of enemies and we felt that it lacked some punch and also that as part of its playstyle almost required the old skill Precise Detonation. Therefore it has been removed; instead, players and civilians no longer take damage from the Mamba, which is part of its base behavior.

Damage has been increased, and an additional middle damage zone has been added, increasing its efficiency in dealing damage to groups of enemies.

Base	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2
Drum-loaded grenade launcher with high explosive grenades that immediately detonate on impact with characters or on a fuse if hitting the environment. Players and Civilians no longer take damage from the mamba	Cluster Bomb Explosions from the Mamba fragment into 4 smaller cluster grenades, each dealing 25% of the original explosion damage.	Drum Loader If you kill 4 enemies without reloading the Mamba, the next reload will be 50% faster.
	Blast Trauma Enemies within 15m of a Mamba explosion have their accuracy permanently reduced by 40%. \.	Shockwave Increases each Mamba explosion radius by 20%
	Wrecker Enemies directly hit by a mamba grenade impact (not in the AOE of the explosion) lose 30% of their armor plates.	Shredding Shrapnel Mamba explosions have 50% higher armor penetration

M135 ARGES

For the ARGES we wanted to lean into its supportive and suppressive nature, allowing you to feel more like a tank holding down an area against the oncoming cops. When the ARGES is spinning or being fired, you now have 10% base armor damage reduction. Any additional bonus damage reduction will degrade by 1% per second whenever the gun is not firing.
Additionally, the ARGES has received a damage boost and is twice as fast to reach its minimum spread, bringing its effectiveness closer to that of other Overkill weapons.

Base	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2	Perk Slot 3
While firing the minigun or when it is spun up, you gain 10% armor damage reduction. Your total armor damage reduction from minigun perks cannot exceed 90%. Any additional bonus damage reduction will degrade by 1% per second whenever the gun is not firing. Unequipping the minigun will end all active bonuses.	Combat Resilience For every second you fire the minigun, your armor gains 2% additional damage reduction.	Tanking Up If you have zero armor plates left, and your damage reduction bonus reaches 30%, you’ll restore 1 armor plate. This effect won’t trigger again until you call in a new OVK minigun.	Battle Ready As long as you are spinning the minigun’s barrel, your bonus to armor damage reduction won’t go down
	Kill Momentum Every time you kill an enemy with the minigun, you gain an additional 5% armor damage reduction.	Death Merchant Every time you kill an enemy with the minigun, you gain an additional 1% armor damage reduction if you are wearing a 2 plate armor or lower, or 2% if you are wearing a 3 plate armor or higher.	Killer Armor Your armor damage reduction bonus will not end when you unequip the minigun; however, the bonus will decrease over time as though you were not firing the minigun.

Sociopath

Sociopath in the game is a strong weapon that has limited use and some of its core skills before, getting Overkill meter progress when doing kills is key to its playstyle. As part of its base behavior, the Sociopath now has a portion of the Bloodlust perk. Recovering 10% of the Overkill Meter when you kill an enemy while the weapon is active. While Bloodlust still exists as a perk allowing you to have a higher total than before. We have also added Killer Instinct that instead of sustaining sociopath, allows you to gain it back faster instead, so you can pick what fits you.

The Overkill meter starts draining after a delay, and the drain rate has been reduced.

Base	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2	Perk Slot 3
If you have a full OVERKILL meter, you pull out a baseball bat on activation and drop any bag or body you are currently carrying. While you’re wielding the baseball bat, all incoming damage is done to your OVERKILL meter instead. You can use light or heavy swings with the bat, inflicting light or heavy damage. You’ll wield the bat until your OVERKILL meter reaches 0 or until you are downed. If you press the OVERKILL button while wielding the bat, your OVERKILL meter drops to 0. \ Killing an enemy while this ability is active will restore 10% of your OVERKILL meter.	Frenzy When there are 3 or more enemies within 5m of you while using this ability, you take 20% less damage	Rabid As long as you are wielding your baseball bat, you are immune to stagger, stagger, stun, slow, disabling effects, and effects that prevent you from sprinting.	Killer Instinct When ability isn’t active killing enemies add an additional 20% buildup to your OVERKILL meter
	Master of Mayhem Whenever you kill an enemy with a bat, enemies within 5m of that enemy will enter a panic and miss all their shots for 5 seconds.	Berserker Killing an enemy while this ability is active will restore 5 health points.	Bloodlust Killing an enemy while this ability is active will restore an additional 20% of your OVERKILL meter.

Interceptor

The stealth approach best tool, increased the backup power greatly to allow you to sustain it’s effects longer controller, when it is time to flip the odds

Base	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2
Blackout Protocol As long as your OVERKILL meter is at least 25% full, you can activate it to disable all cameras on the heist temporarily. Once activated, your meter will drain over time. When your meter reaches 0, this skill’s effect will end. You can only use this skill once per heist and only if the alarm hasn’t been raised. \. This uses the “phone” player animation.	Threat Mapping This skill now also marks all guards and cameras while active.	Signal Block While this skill is active, radios can’t go off, and any currently active radios will not expire. Once this skill’s effect ends, any pending radios will activate, and any active radios will expire.
	Power Efficiency Decrease the rate at which your OVERKILL meter drains by 25%.	Spam Call While this skill is active, every guard’s phone will activate, distracting them from their actions. If a guard is escorting a player, the guard will return to patrolling after this effect ends. If the guard is about to detain a player, the guard will go into Search mode instead.
		Backup Power Decrease the rate at which your OVERKILL meter drains by 40%.

Karl Alfred M606

This recoilless grenade launcher allows switching ammo types via mod options, each with different effects, damage, and behaviors. This allows you to tune the role of the weapon to something you want or that would benefit your team, take out groups, single targets with enemies behind or smoke down an area and deal with all of the marked targets within, its a weapon that can fit any situation and preference. The weapon gets delivered with three shots per standard.
The gun also features a large backblast, causing damage and hurt reactions from enemies, so make sure it is clear… or not!

Base	Ammo	Perk Slot 1	Perk Slot 2
Ammo Type – Explosive Grenade (Default Equipped) Explodes in a large radius dealing moderate damage to all enemies within it’s area of effect. Has high probability to trigger heavy stagger in near proximity of the explosion. Can also damage and triggers enemy weakpoints.	Ammo Type – Smoke Grenade On impact deals a moderate amount of damage and spawns a large cloud of smoke obstructing the view for enemies. All enemies within its AOE are heavy staggered and marked. Skills affecting smoke grenades apply to this grenade.	Cull the Herd Enemies that are heavy staggered from firing or being hit by the M606 take 30% additional damage for 15s	Kill Zone The fired grenades area of effect is increased 25%
	Ammo Type – HEAT Shaped Charge Grenade Explodes in a small radius on impact and deals high piercing damage, penetrating through the impacted target dealing the same damage to targets behind.	Devastator If a grenade from an M606 directly impacts an enemy and kills them, it’s reload speed is increased by 60% and the next grenade fired deals 20% extra damage. (Does not stack)	Mutilator Enemies affected by the M606 deal 50% less damage permanently. (Does not stack)
		Topped Up I M606 spawns with an additional grenade	Topped Up II M606 spawns with an additional grenade

Base

Ammo

Perk Slot 1

Perk Slot 2

Ammo Type – Explosive Grenade (Default Equipped)

Explodes in a large radius dealing moderate damage to all enemies within it’s area of effect. Has high probability to trigger heavy stagger in near proximity of the explosion. Can also damage and triggers enemy weakpoints.

Ammo Type – Smoke Grenade

On impact deals a moderate amount of damage and spawns a large cloud of smoke obstructing the view for enemies. All enemies within its AOE are heavy staggered and marked. Skills affecting smoke grenades apply to this grenade.

Cull the Herd
Enemies that are heavy staggered from firing or being hit by the M606 take 30% additional damage for 15s

Kill Zone
The fired grenades area of effect is increased 25%

Ammo Type – HEAT Shaped Charge Grenade

Explodes in a small radius on impact and deals high piercing damage, penetrating through the impacted target dealing the same damage to targets behind.

Devastator
If a grenade from an M606 directly impacts an enemy and kills them, it’s reload speed is increased by 60% and the next grenade fired deals 20% extra damage. (Does not stack)

Mutilator
Enemies affected by the M606 deal 50% less damage permanently. (Does not stack)

Topped Up I
M606 spawns with an additional grenade

Topped Up II
M606 spawns with an additional grenade