And they would see it too if they ever played Payday 2. All the heists here require players to adapt to the situation on the fly, making the experience extremely dynamic. Hours of fun to be had. As any multiplayer game worthy of its name, Payday 2 also has a very active community that’s always working on new features and content in the form of mods. Now these additions may not be as varied as other mod-friendly games. But this doesn’t mean you’d wanna skip over these mods! There’s a lot in this list to love, so take a peek into the vault and see what kinda gold you can take with you.
25. Anime Compilation
Check Out This Mod Payday 2 is definitely not a game for children. Then why did everything get so cutesy all of a sudden? The Anime Compilation pack introduces new HUD textures, loading screens, skill tree backgrounds, and more goodies, all inspired by some of the most popular anime shows around. Don’t let this fool you, though: the game hasn’t really changed. And your heists will not be any less bloody!
24. NPC Weapon Customizer
Check Out This Mod It’s not right that you get to use so many cool weapons, and NPCs are stuck with their old ugly guns. Time to make things right. NPC Weapon Customizer replaces the default NPC weapons with any gun you own. The changes are only cosmetic, so there’s no actual gameplay change here… but hey, anything to make NPCs a little happier, yeah?
23. Classic Weapon Animations
Check Out This Mod Remember a time when animations were much better? Payday Farms remembers. This neat little mod restores the old animations that were included in the original version of the game, with the exception of melee weapons and grenade animations. Payday 2 might play much better now than in the past, but we should always properly celebrate the titles that got us this far. Retro gaming lovers are sure to enjoy this mod.
22. Cali’s All in One Realism Rebalance
Check Out This Mod I don’t know about you, but I’m always baffled at how it takes so many shots to kill someone in video games, Payday 2 included. For this reason, I’m always on the lookout for rebalancing mods: these bullets cost money, you know. Cali’s All in One Realism Rebalance introduces tweaks for all weapons that makes them way more powerful, while adding more recoil too. With this mod installed you’ll see that shotguns are more powerful at close range, and handguns won’t be useless at all. The fun times will increase exponentially.
21. Hitman Perk Deck Fix
Check Out This Mod Silent. Agile. Deadly. This how a hitman should be. And this is not really our hitman in Payday 2. Well this rebalancing mod aims to fix this specific deck by removing the 20% armor penalty with a 20% dodge bonus, giving players more options if they want to build an evasive character. More options are always good in my book. Even if it means to cheat the system a bit. We’re criminals in Payday 2, after all.
20. Better Jokers
Check Out This Mod Having more friends is always a good thing. Having competent friends is even better! Better Jokers aims to considerably improve jokers over the vanilla game, making it easier to control their actions and let them take advantage of bot exclusive features like shortcuts and passageways. Now this is a real payback, considering how much they have been nerfed in the past few years!
19. Any Skill
Check Out This Mod Skill trees are a thing of the past. From now on, you’ll be able to become whoever you want. This Any Skill mod is a very simple add-on that makes it possible to learn any of the game’s skills without having to learn other skills first. This opens up so many customization options right from the start. I’d almost say that playing Payday 2 will no longer feel the same. Not surprising, though, considering you can match up strictly with players using this mod. Keep it fair.
18. Custom Escape Vehicles
Check Out This Mod Variety is the spice of life. And this Custom Escape Vehicles mod is just what we need for some extra spice. It lets you finally get rid of that boring old van, and replace it with 17 different vehicles. More than 40 missions are supported here as well, so you can be sure that you’ll see the van much less than before. But only if you’re the host: only true leaders get certain privileges, you know.
17. Jokermon
Check Out This Mod To catch them is my real test. To train them is my cause… Jokermon! No, you haven’t entered an alternate reality where Pokémon have become robbers. You just installed the Jokermon mod, an amazing Payday 2 add-on that lets you train converted cops, improve their abilities, and deploy them at will. Total control for maximum criminal efficiency. Do you have what it takes to become the champion?
16. Hinaomi’s Skills & Perk Decks Rebalance
Check Out This Mod When you play a game for close to ten thousand hours, you really need a little something to spice things up again. Or more than just a little something. This rebalance mod by Hinaomi is what you’re looking for to change the Payday 2 experience for the better. How so? Well, it includes weapon and skill rebalancing tweaks that make overpowered skills fairer, and not so useful skills much better. The changes are not massive, to be honest. But they’re big enough that you’ll almost have to relearn a lot of things. Make sure to not mess anything up.
15. Tailor Expansion
Check Out This Mod You always want to look your best in Payday 2. Even if some of your shiny new clothes are getting splattered with blood and guts. Well thanks to the Tailor Expansion mod, you can get a new wardrobe for your characters lickety split. This introduces a lot of new variants to existing outfits. But these will not make you a better player, that’s for sure… still, I’d say your stylish points will shoot through the roof.
14. Better Assault Indicator
Check Out This Mod Proper information display in Payday 2 means the difference between victory and defeat, life and death. So, ready to become infallible? The Better Assault Indicator mod improves the game’s interface by introducing a lot of tweaks that make it much easier to keep track of the truly important information. All heists up until the 7th Anniversary Update are supported, so you’ll surely find more than a few uses for this one.
13. Persona 3 Major Arcana Infamy Cards
Check Out This Mod Burn my Dread. I’ll break the chain and run till I see the sunlight again. I don’t know why, but I feel the lyrics of Persona 3’s theme song fit perfectly into Payday 2. And so does the Major Arcana Infamy Cards mod, which changes the regular cards with the Major Arcana from the popular role-playing game developed by Atlus. I mean, you really can’t find anything more fitting than a criminal branded with the Hanged Man card.
12. Less Effects Alpha
Check Out This Mod Less is, sometimes, for the best: not everyone can get a brand new computer every year. This fantastic mod turns off a lot of effects that have an impact on performance, especially on weaker systems. Think of it like a simplistic QOL mod, if you’re not aiming for max 4k graphics here. The game is not going to look particularly good with everything turned off. But anything goes if you just want to play, even on a 10 year old laptop.
11. Metal Gear Solid-Style Detected Sound
Check Out This Mod It has been so long since a new Metal Gear Solid game released, that I’ve forgotten how the series sounds. This mod helps a bit. It replaces the game’s regular sound FX with the Alert! sound from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. A legendary sound for a legendary criminal such as yourself.
10. Simple Crosshair
Check Out This Mod Aiming properly while tension is rising and nerves are fraying? Definitely not an easy thing to do. The Simple Crosshair mod adds a small crosshair to the center of the screen that’s always visible, no matter what you’re doing. If you prefer something like that, well then you’re definitely going to want this mod. Make sure you’re aiming as accurately as possible at all times. And if you love using bows, the crosshair has some features that compensate for the bow’s offset too. How thoughtful!
9. Modern Lighting Reshade
Check Out This Mod Payday 2 can be a very dark game, thematically. So it’s high time to make its visuals just as dark. Modern Lighting Reshade gives us some visuals updates that restyle everything into a more cinematic look, with improved lighting and anamorphic lens flares. The biggest change, however, is that shadows and non-lit areas are now much darker. This makes some of the attachments more useful than before. Also a bit more spooky, if that’s something you’re into. These are the visual changes we love to see.
8. Custom Laser Colors and Rainbow Lasers
Check Out This Mod You: How would you like your laser’s color? Me: Yes. Here we’ve got a pretty simple modification that lets you change the laser colors for controlled characters, teammates, and enemies. And if a single color is not good enough for you, well you can enable rainbow-colored lasers instead. Now you can become the most dangerous unicorn this game has ever seen.
7. Digital Heavy Armor
Check Out This Mod Payday 2 lacks a certain blockiness in its visuals. This isn’t Minecraft, obviously. But time to change that in the most subtle of ways. The Digital Heavy Armor mod is a cosmetic add-on that retextures the heavy armor into a digital green camouflage armor set. The suit and the lightweight armor are not affected by the mod, so no changes in stats. Just design. Aesthetics matter here too, folks.
6. Dozercraft
Check Out This Mod Dozercraft sounds dangerously close to Minecraft. Could it be because it’s been influenced by one of the most popular games of all time? The Dozercraft mod retextures all the bulldozers to look like Minecraft enemies, silly faces included. Take note that the enemies don’t really like these changes… so you can expect them to be even fiercer than before. Not surprising at all. How would you react if you got changed into something so corny?
5. Stop the Cheater
Check Out This Mod Cheaters be gone! Or, maybe. Cheaters are the problem in pretty much every PC multiplayer game. But with the Stop the Cheater mod, you’ll be able to fight back and mess up their game by slowing them down for five seconds by pressing a customizable hotkey. It may not be enough to stop all of them, but some will definitely think twice about trying to make things way too easy for themselves. And maybe avoid running cheat mods yourself. No need to end up on the receiving end of this.
4. Equipment Colors
Check Out This Mod A quality of life mod that makes item management smoother and faster? Yes, please! Equipment Colors changes the equipment to sport different colors (as you could guess). Why is this useful? Basically makes it easier to see which ones are selected and which ones aren’t. It’s not a major change, but after thousands of hours fighting against the menu system, I’ll take anything that can save me some time.
3. FED.NET
Check Out This Mod The only way to defeat an enemy that seems to be unstoppable is to take the best weapon in their arsenal, then add it to yours. FED.NET is a complete gameplay overhaul for Payday 2 that lets you play as the police protecting the loot, and no longer as the heisters stealing it. The mod introduces 26 different character models, new criminal factions, new progression mechanics, and revamped maps with different scenarios. Payday 3 is still far from release, so this will do nicely for now. Plenty here to keep you busy.
2. Face Retexture Project
Check Out This Mod Gameplay overhauls are nice, but what if I just want to improve the graphics and leave everything else? Here we are. The Face Retexture Project improves the faces of 11 characters by removing the static lighting and reflections, improving eye shading, and retexturing them. The end results are amazing, and make Payday 2 almost feel like a big-budget 2020 game. Now the only thing that is left to do is…
1. Re-Texture Project
Check Out This Mod … install the Re-Texture Project to improve everything that’s not a human face! The Retexture Project adds so many new textures that it would be difficult to list them all here, and be brief about it. Check the mod description for a complete list, but it’s almost everything you’d care about. Suffice to say that everything from the main menu to the maps, have all received a massive overhaul. So massive that you may start wondering if you’ve jumped ahead years in time and started playing Payday 3. Spoilers: you haven’t. But a man can dream.
