50 Fun Facts About Payday 2

Damion Poitier, the face and voice of Chains in Payday 2, was the first actor to play which Marvel villain on film?

Thanos made his first Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance as an uncredited Poitier in The Avengers. Josh Brolin took over the role in later films.

Which Quentin Tarantino film inspired a Payday 2 jewelry store heist whose two days are played in reverse order?

Reservoir Dogs tells its story out of order, so the heist does too: day two is played before day one. The robbery is set in Los Angeles rather than the gang's usual turf.

Which film hitman joined Payday 2 as a playable heister in 2014, described as an old military comrade of Chains?

John Wick was the first heister added after launch, promoting the Keanu Reeves action film released that year. He brought the Hitman perk deck with him.

Which Breaking Bad actor plays the Dentist, the Payday 2 contractor who offers to help free Hoxton from custody?

Giancarlo Esposito's Dentist starts out as a middleman for wealthy clients and ends up as the main villain of the story. He recruits Dallas during a dental check-up.

Which zombie shooter does Payday 2's No Mercy hospital heist nod to, with a chance cameo by a survivor named Bill?

Left 4 Dead survivor Bill can wander into the hospital elevator as a brief cameo. The job began life as a 2012 crossover add-on for Payday: The Heist.

Which nickname do police use for the Payday gang, inspired by the painted masks Dallas, Hoxton and Chains wear?

The Clowns is the name law enforcers give the crew, because every heister wears a stylized clown mask. Dallas has his painted like the American flag.

Which American city is the Payday gang's new base in Payday 2, with every early contract pinned to a map of it?

Washington, D.C. hosts the gang's new heisting spree two years after the first game. Its police answer the alarms first, followed by FBI teams and then GenSec's private security contractors.

Which Al Pacino gangster became a playable Payday 2 heister, arriving alongside a heist set at his own mansion?

Tony Montana joined as the crew's Kingpin in a Scarface crossover. The voice belongs to André Sogliuzzo, who had already played the character in an earlier Scarface video game.

Jacket, the silent Payday 2 heister who communicates only through a tape recorder, crossed over from which indie game?

Hotline Miami's rooster-masked killer joined the crew in March 2015, released alongside that game's sequel. The FBI has no recording of his voice, only his dictaphone.

Which famous building do the heisters raid in Payday 2's final story heist?

The White House holds the unused pardons that let the gang walk away from everything it has done. Afterwards everyone except Dallas throws their mask away.

Bodhi, the thrill-seeking Payday 2 heister who arrived with a skydiving heist, was borrowed from which action film?

Point Break's 2015 remake supplied Bodhi along with two heists. One of them, Birth of Sky, has the crew parachute out of a plane after pallets of stolen cash.

Which Sons of Anarchy actor plays Rust, the biker who turns on his own motorcycle club to join the Payday 2 crew?

Ron Perlman supplies both the voice and the face of Rust. In stealth, Rust may ask a guard's dispatcher whether they have seen Hellboy, another of the actor's roles.

Ethan and Hila, a married couple added to Payday 2 as playable heisters in 2017, run which real YouTube channel?

H3h3Productions hosts Ethan and Hila Klein were written in as broadcasters drained of money by legal bills, which is how Bain tempts them into robbing vaults.

Jimmy, the Payday 2 heister and contractor played by Sharlto Copley, crossed over from which 2016 action film?

Hardcore Henry gave Payday 2 two heists and Jimmy, the crew's Maniac. Unlike most guest heisters, he is played and voiced by his original film actor.

Which comedy video game crossed over with Payday 2 in a heist where the crew chases drug-carrying farm animals?

Goat Simulator inspired a two-day job for Vlad in which the gang rounds up goats that have bags of cocaine hidden in their stomachs.

Which real DJ plays himself in a Payday 2 heist, performing an arena concert while the crew robs the vault below?

Alesso wrote a track titled Payday for the heist. His closing pyrotechnics give the crew cover to blast their way toward the vaults beneath the arena.

Which original Payday heister is a bankrupt Swedish software developer, voiced by Overkill co-founder Ulf Andersson?

Wolf ran a successful software firm until its only client starved it of payments, leaving him homeless and ready to rob banks. Until the age of 30 he had been a law-abiding family man.

Which burglar, once Hoxton's apprentice, became the first playable female heister in Payday 2 in December 2014?

Clover once tried to con Hoxton, who spotted the trick and took her on as his student instead. Her alias and her mask both show off her Irish pride.

Sydney, the Australian anarchist who joined the Payday 2 crew in 2016, actually hails from which other Australian city?

Melbourne is where Kelli King ran with a youth gang called the Dingos before she took another city's name as her alias. She also designs masks for the rest of the crew.

Hoxton, the original Payday heister whose jailbreak drives much of Payday 2's story, comes from which country?

England is home for Hoxton, who comes from Sheffield. Overkill planned a Cockney accent for him but kept the Yorkshire one of his voice actor, Pete Gold.

Which console received Payday 2 in 2018, with the hacker Joy as a heister who was at first exclusive to it?

Nintendo Switch owners got Joy first; PC players waited until August 2018, when she arrived for free. She was the last playable heister added to the game.

Which publisher released Payday 2 in August 2013, giving developer Overkill its first boxed retail release?

505 Games had to work with retailers to ship extra copies after strong first-week sales caused shortages. Digital copies still went out on PlayStation Network, Xbox Live and Steam as planned.

Which Swedish company, already the owner of Overkill, acquired the full rights to the Payday franchise in May 2016?

Starbreeze Studios announced the purchase together with a promise that future loot safes would be free to open, an answer to the row over paid drills.

Payday 3, the 2023 sequel to Payday 2, moves the retired gang's comeback heists to which city?

New York is where the crew returns to work after a conspiracy freezes its assets and forces it out of retirement, guided by a new operator called Shade.

Which Payday 2 composer also voices Bain, the operator who talks the crew through every heist over the radio?

Simon Viklund helped found Overkill and drew on the 1995 film Heat for the first game's music. Born Wiklund, he changed the spelling because people abroad kept mispronouncing it.

What subtitle did Payday 2 carry when its enhanced console version reached PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2015?

Crimewave Edition bundled sharper graphics with content PC players already had. Overkill said the older PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 could not handle further updates.

Which Payday 2 community event caused a fan backlash in October 2015 by introducing paid safe drills?

Crimefest 2015 added safes of weapon skins that needed drills bought with real money, and some skins changed weapon stats. Adding the drills to free card drops five days later did not calm the anger.

Which criminal ally of the Payday gang is unmasked in Payday 2 as the rat who sold Hoxton out to the FBI?

Hector gave Hoxton up to the FBI in exchange for protection. The crew learns the truth from the bureau's own files, then raids his safehouse and kills him.

Vlad, the volatile Payday 2 contractor behind jobs like Four Stores and Mallcrasher, is a mobster from which country?

Ukraine is Vlad's homeland, and the underworld knows him simply as the Ukrainian. He begins the story newly freed after eight years in prison, sold out by a friend.

What is the day job of the Elephant, the Payday 2 contractor behind the Big Oil and Framing Frame heists?

A politician in the middle of an election race, the Elephant hires the crew to smear his rivals. Actor Bokeem Woodbine voices the Republican congressman.

Which private military company, a recurring enemy of the Payday gang, owns the warehouse robbed in Shadow Raid?

Murkywater mercenaries guard the depot in Shadow Raid, a job built entirely around stealth: once the alarm sounds, the crew has one minute to finish and get back to the van.

In Payday 2's secret ending, Bain is implied to have swapped bodies with which powerful figure before the gang retires?

The US President appears on television while the retired crew celebrates on vacation, with the hint that Bain is now the man giving the speech. The crew has, in effect, stolen America.

Houston, who filled in for the jailed Hoxton when Payday 2 launched, is which relation of the gang's leader Dallas?

His younger brother wore Hoxton's mask and even answered to Hoxton's name until the 2014 jailbreak. He then took the alias Houston but kept the mask.

The Russian Payday 2 heister Sokol hid his casino robberies behind a professional career in which sport?

Ice hockey was the perfect front: Sokol was a grinder for the St. Petersburg Bombers who emptied casino vaults between matches. His perk deck is named Grinder as well.

Jiro, the Yakuza veteran among the playable heisters of Payday 2, is driven by the search for which lost person?

His kidnapped son, Kento, was taken by Jiro's own clan after it uncovered his secret affair with the boss's daughter. Jiro then spent twenty years behind bars.

Dragan, the Croatian heister who joins Payday 2 alongside the Butcher, was a corrupt agent of which police organisation?

Interpol lost Dragan when he betrayed his own partner to the Butcher. His reward was a fresh identity and a place in the gang, arranged in a deal with Bain.

Bonnie, the hard-drinking Scottish gambler who joined the Payday 2 crew in 2015, grew up in which city?

Glasgow shaped Bonnie during the 1980s, and the carved grin on her mask nods to the scar known as a Glasgow smile. The mask also carries the Scottish saltire.

Sangres, a former cartel assassin, joined Payday 2 as a free heister in 2017 to mark which Mexican celebration?

Cinco de Mayo came a day after his release on May 4. Sangres had served a cartel in Monterrey before crossing the border, where arms dealer Gage introduced him to the gang.

In which city is the Golden Grin Casino, the target of the Dentist's final job for the Payday 2 crew?

Las Vegas hosted the first Payday 2 heist set away from the gang's home turf. Cracking the vault loudly takes a custom drill so big it needs its own power and coolant.

What must a Payday 2 player answer after silently killing a guard, a bluff that works only four times per heist?

His pager starts beeping within seconds, and the crew has about twelve seconds to pick up. The operator on the line stops believing the excuses on the fifth call and raises the alarm.

Which Payday 2 special enemy crawls through vents, wears green night-vision goggles and downs a heister with one kick?

Cloaker units give themselves away with a high-pitched noise before they strike. Once a heister is on the ground, they keep beating him with a nightstick.

Which drug does the crew have to cook in a derelict lab during the opening day of Payday 2's Rats heist?

Meth takes three chemicals per bag here: muriatic acid, caustic soda and hydrogen chloride. Add the wrong one and the lab explodes.

Which fictional website is Payday 2's mission-select screen, where contracts pop up across a map of the city?

Crime.net lets a player pick up an open contract, join a job someone else has started, or pay a broker to set one up.

Which Payday 2 system lets a player at reputation level 100 wipe their progress and start again with a new rank?

Infamy resets a character to zero in exchange for a new rank, special items and a permanent boost to experience. There are five hundred levels of it to climb.

Which Payday 2 difficulty is the hardest of the game's seven settings, replacing an earlier top tier called One Down?

Death Sentence took over as the top setting in a difficulty rebalance, while One Down lives on as an optional rule. Hosts need reputation level 80 to select it.

The Dentist's first big Payday 2 job, cracked with a drill nicknamed the Beast, targets which financial institution?

Benevolent Bank is said to make the First World Bank of the first game look like a toy store. The heist introduced pre-planning, where the crew spends favors on assets.

What prototype must the crew pick out from twelve lookalikes in a laboratory on day two of Payday 2's Big Oil heist?

A fusion reactor is the prize: the Elephant wants it to win the backing of oil conglomerates. Hand over the wrong one and the crew must go back for another.

Mira Furlan, who voiced the Butcher in Payday 2, was best known as Delenn in which 1990s science-fiction series?

Babylon 5 cast Furlan as Delenn for all five seasons, and she later played Danielle Rousseau in Lost. The Butcher she voiced is a veteran of the Bosnian conflict turned gun runner.

Which Croatian studio of former Overkill staff made the Butcher's first Payday 2 heists instead of Overkill itself?

Lion Game Lion opened in Zagreb in July 2014 and was for years the only outside developer to make official Payday 2 content.

Where does Payday 2 put the 80 percent of each heist's earnings that a player cannot spend on weapons and masks?

An offshore account holds the money as the player's retirement fund, though it can also pay for contracts. A button in the safehouse even lets a player burn the lot.