Payday 3’s been through the ringer the last few days. Earlier this morning, the game continued to experience the same matchmaking issues it’s been experiencing since launch last Thursday. The devs have taken to Twitch to talk to the community about Payday 3’s extensive issues and other updates, but what they had to say wasn’t very comforting.

Before hopping into the Twitch chat to answer some questions, Global Brand Director Almir Listo and Lead Producer Andreas Penninger read an official statement from the studio regarding the game’s rocky online performance:

Payday 3 matchmaking infrastructure has not performed as tested and expected. Matchmaking software encountered an unforeseen error which made it unable to handle the massive influx of players. The issue an unrecoverable situation for Starbreeze’s third-party matchmaking partner. A new version of the matchmaking software gradually deployed across all regions, leading to improved performance, however, a software update made by the partner on late Sunday again introduced instability to the matchmaking infrastructure. The partner continues to work to improve and stabilize Payday 3’s online system. The issue in question did not manifest during the technical betas or early access due to the specificity of rapid user influx and load balancing. Starbreeze are currently evaluating all options, both short and long term. In the short term, this means our focus is to ensure your player experience. In the long term, this means evaluating a new partner for matchmaking services, and making Payday 3 less dependent on online services.

Around 30 minutes later, someone in the chat asked if the studio knew when the servers would be back to normal. Listo took the question and responded as follows:

When will the servers be fixed? That’s something we do not know right now. We are working on improving the stability. As soon as we are comfortable saying they are fixed, we will let you know. But I think given the past few days’ experiences you heisters have had, I think it’s too early to say something as permanent as that.

It seems as though most of the issues that Payday 3 has been experiencing are due to a third-party company that Starbreeze worked with to host Payday’s servers. This might just be an easy way for the studio to shift the blame, but even so, it’s never good to hear a developer say they don’t know when an issue will be fixed. A rough launch can hurt a game’s reputation severely and leave it dead in the water before it even starts.