Characters / Payday 2 The Payday Gang

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The PAYDAY Gang

In General

• Amazon Brigade: As of the Icebreaker event 2018, it's possible to get an all-female Heister team together with Clover, Bonnie, Sydney, Hila, and Joy.
• Badass Crew: The PAYDAY Gang lets nothing stand in their way. While they start off with smaller crimes, they have canonically robbed The Benevolent Bank (which had a record of never being robbed in its 200-year history), raided an FBI satellite office, robbed a mercenary group without being seen, and stolen a server full of extremely sensitive (and valuable) information from FBI Headquarters. And, to top it all off, they steal from the damn White House There's a reason cops respond with overwhelming force to reports of a PAYDAY heist.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: How they start out. Later on, they can be upgraded to wear body armor (under which they still wear the nice suit). It's such an identifier for them that the main theme of the game is called Mayhem Dressed In A Suit. The exceptions are Jacket, who wears his trademark letterman jacket from Hotline Miami as his default outfit, Bodhi and Rust, who are both decked out in fine leather jackets, Sangres, who favors Hawaiian shirts, and Joy, who dons a hoodie, ripped jeans, and mismatched sneakers.
  • You don more traditional two-piece suits when playing the Shacklethorne Auction Heist. Said suits come in both Black and White, complete with Bowties. Everyone dons funeral suits for Bain's burial in The End, but it's not exactly a badass moment...
• Caper Crew: They are a team of criminals who perform a variety of ridiculous heists.
• Determinator: Make no mistake, once they get a contract, nothing will stop them from completing it. No matter what it is; bank robbery, assassination, Nuclear Warheads, saving their boss, stealing from the White House, what have you, they will get it done.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The PAYDAY Gang includes not only men and women, but also Swedes, Russians, Australians and even a mixed-race Japanese man.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Akin to Heat, the robbers are professionals and thus minimize innocent casualties. Also encouraged in-game, as players who take liberties with civs will be scolded by either Bain or Locke, and will lose cash to bribe the death away, and will also sit in custody for longer if caught.
  • The trailer for the Big Bank heist features a civilian who has been turned down for a small business loan for Black Bulldozer bobbleheads. This is noticed by Dallas. Once the robbery begins, the civilian ends up helping the gang out multiple times on their heist, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Dallas himself repays him by tossing him a wad of cash before their helicopter takes off.
  • The crew also don't go out of their way to rob innocent people, but opting to rob establishments whose money can easily be replaced (banks) or belongs to a shady group who are just as bad as the crew themselves (gangsters, corrupt politicians, etc).
  • The crew also have a certain other type of standard, namely they prefer to be professional about things, especially Bain. They never pick the pockets of the hostages they get, never grab random dollar bills on the floor (even the smallest cash pickups you can take are bundles of at least a thousand bucks) and they only indulge in torture if it's absolutely necessary. To them, heisting is a profession and nothing more, and there's no reason to be excessively cruel unless the job calls for it.
  • Bain and presumably the rest of the crew are perturbed when the cargo Vlad wants them to steal from the Murkywater mercenaries in "Meltdown" turn out to be Nuclear Warheads. When Bain figures this out, he promptly calls Vlad out for not telling them. The whole scene is set-up as if the team wouldn't have taken the job if Vlad had been straight up with them, and only continue the heist because they're now surrounded by Murkywater mercenaries, and police with a lethal payload slung round their backs, and no safe way to extract except by way of the train Vlad so-graciously provided.
  • With the cross-promotional trailer for Hardcore Henry, Dallas initially accepts a job through the Elephant, who is acting as the liaison to Akan, the big bad of the movie, to do a job for him. Jimmy, however, manages to convince the crew not to do it because of Akan being even worse than they are, and even offers to pay a lot more to work with him instead. This is lampshaded by Bain in the mission briefing for the assault level. Bain even points out that it feels weird doing something outright good for once.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The gang retires and goes their separate ways in the ending.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Each of the five different classes belonging to Dallas, Chains, Wolf, Houston and Hoxton complement each other in different areas:
  • The Mastermind is sanguine: focuses on controlling people (whether civilian or cop), team support and motivation, and sinking skills into dexterity and shouts, especially so as their shouts can terrify civilians, speed up allies, and even revive people.
  The Mastermind is a manipulative leader who excels in situational control.
  • The Enforcer is choleric: focuses on loud, powerful assaults, and focuses heavily on berserker rages and suicide attacks.
  The Enforcer is a violent criminal, usually employed by crime syndicates to execute jobs that no one else can.
  • The Technician is phlegmatic: the Weak, but Skilled (until late levels) who specializes in indirect skills like drill skills, personal sentries, and controlled detonations.
  The Technician is an expert in the practical application of criminal science, enjoying anything that goes BOOM!
  • The Ghost is melancholic: the perfectionist of the team capable of slipping in and out without alarms, and is (most often) the only class capable of pulling off a master caper completely by themselves.
  The Ghost is a stealth artist, capable of grand theft without force or violence.
  • The Fugitive is supine: possessing the most varied skillset which allows for staying alive and backing up other players, with the ability to bag more bodies and kill civilians with smaller penalties, clear out rooms before getting downed or minimize the danger of Cloakers and, sometimes, revive themselves after incapacitation.
  The Fugitive is a survivor, always on the run and an expert at hiding from the law.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Canonically, the crew try to minimize civilian casualties and are outright helpful to some of the civilians that get wrapped up in their heists (Bain wires some cash into a few bank accounts if you hack the wrong computer in the Big Bank heist and Dallas tosses Bobblehead Bob a wad of cash for his efforts in helping the PAYDAY Gang), but ingame it's a slightly different story. While Bain will chew you out on it, many players find it easier to just kill any civilians that might cause trouble (such as on Stealth). The game does penalize this behavior on Loud, though, as killing civilians will make a hostage trade take longer if somebody is taken into custody.
• Hired Guns: While the lower level jobs are all robberies or petty crimes of some sort (though of the type to make petty criminals cringe), the PAYDAY Gang is sufficiently professional that they get involved as criminals for hire by all sorts of people. Their personal morality aside, they never decline even the dirtiest of jobs, as long as the money is good.
• Honor Among Thieves: While some members of the crew are pretty friendly with each other, others may not feel the same and prefer to either keep the relationship professional or use the "stay out of my way, I stay out of your way" attitude. Regardless, the whole crew work very closely together, watch each other's backs, never harming civilians, and they don't squabble over who should claim what for the loot since everyone gets paid equally.
• Ink-Suit Actor: The gangs faces are mostly based on real-life people, often their VA's or actors who play them in the web series:
  • Dallas has the face of Eric Etabari, but his VA is Simon Kerr.
  • Chains is portrayed by Damion Poitier.
  • Wolf is portrayed by Ulf Andersson (mostly).
  • Houston is portrayed by Derek Ray.
  • Hoxton has the face of Josh Lenn, but the voice of Pete Gold.
  • John Wick is loosely based on Keanu Reeves, but has the voice of Dave Foquette, due to Keanu Reeves swearing off voice acting in games at the time.
  • Clover is portrayed by Aoife Duffin, making the whole Butter Face situation a bit weird.
  • Dragan is portrayed by Dragomir Mršić.
  • Jiro is portrayed by Togo Igawa (just without glasses and a beard).
  • Jimmy is portrayed by Sharlto Copley.
  • Sydney has the face and voice of Georgia Van Cuylenburg, just not the hair.
  • Rust is portrayed by Ron Perlman.
  • Sangres is loosely based on his VA, Joseph Balderrama.
  • Ethan and Hila are portrayed by...themselves.
• And averted by:
  • Jacket, as he's The Faceless in his home series)
  • Bonnie looks very much like her VA; Rhona Cameron, however in an unusual twist, she was originally meant to voice Clover until Aoife Duffin took over that role. Overkill later rehired Rhona to play Bonnie, and based her on what it clearly an Expy of Carrie "Big Boo" Black from Orange Is the New Black which her old pre-release render makes very clear, and her eventual in-game look doesn't stray too far from Big Boo's general appearance.
  • Bodhi, who looks like nobody in particular.
  • Scarface is loosely based on Al Pacino.
  • Sokol is not based on anyone in particular.
• Karma Houdini: After the crew steals the Presidential pardons. they effectively absolved themselves of every single crime they committed and there's nothing that law enforcement can do about it.
• Large Ham: While they remain professional most of the time, each heister (except Jacket) hams it up from time-to-time, typically when answering pagers, or dealing with special enemies.
• Legacy Character: The Hoxton alias that originally belonged to the mean Brit from the first game. After his arrest, the name went to Dallas' younger brother. The name went back to "old" Hoxton once he was freed from prison and "new" Hoxton is renamed "Houston". However, Houston keeps Hoxton's old mask and Hoxton gets a new one based on his old mask.
• Made of Iron: In classic movie fashion, even with armor, pretty much the only thing keeping them alive or coming back from being downed in fights is sheer willpower, and maybe a little bit of medicine.
• Malevolent Masked Man: All of them are robbers and murderers who wear creepy masks during their jobs, it's a given.
• Monster Clown: Surprisingly, averted for three of the default masks; they're all fairly mundane clown masks, albeit made iconic and terrifying by the PAYDAY Gang's prominence. Played straight by Wolf's, and later Hoxton's, masks, however, the former being a scary white-red demon mask and the latter featuring black tears from the eyes and a huge burn mark. Also played straight by several of the unlockable masks.
• Multinational Team: The crew's members come from many places, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, Australia, Mexico, and even Croatia.
• One-Man Army: Every single one of them counts as this. A single gang member can mow down dozens of police, soldiers, and other assorted enemies. Together? Nothing can seem to stop them.
• One-Steve Limit: Enforced. Houston was originally called Hoxton, taking over the name after the original was captured by the police. After the real Hoxton is rescued, he makes it clear that Houston needs either get a new nickname or get his ass kicked. That said, since they are aliases, which are designed at least in part to mask identities during heists, but allow them to identify each other, this is somewhat justified that they would not want to cause confusion in the middle of a firefight. Despite the filmic reference Hoxton himself makes, the name change also ties into the fact that Houston and Dallas are siblings, with both aliases being two of the largest cities in Texas.
  Hoxton: They call you Hoxton, right? It should be more like Houston... 'cause you've got a fucking problem!
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Played with. It's played straight with Dallas (whose use of "Nathan Steele" is all but stated to be an alias, as he uses it when talking to the FBI and The Dentist), Wolf, Jacket, Houston, and Bodhi. This is Averted with the full names of six heisters (John Wick, Kelli "Sydney" King, Thomas "Rust" Bishop, Bonnie "McGee", James "Hoxton" Hoxworth, Dragan "Zubović", August "Duke" Lindenhurst, Ethan and Hila "Klein"), while the first names of six heisters are revealed (Nicholas "Chains", Roxanne "Clover", Sokol, Jiro, Jimmy and Sangres), and Inverted with one heister (Tony Montana is never referred to by his codename of "Scarface" by the other heisters).
• Retired Outlaw: All of them, at the end of the story. The End shows the group dropping their masks into Bain's open grave and walking away scot-free owing to the pardons they stole, free to live their lives without fear of the police coming after them. However, the setup for PAYDAY 3 is the original four and Joy being forced out of retirement (though time will tell if this sticks for the others).
• Smoking Is Cool: All of them have a smoking animation when an AI player is left idle.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Most of the female and non-american heisters will do this, and will also put on hammy accents, pretend there's nothing wrong, and/or pine for some action by daydreaming about a crew robbing the place.
• Undying Loyalty: The crew is willing to go to pretty extreme lengths to take care of each other. Exemplified in the Hoxton Breakout trailer, where Dallas, Wolf, Chains and Houston (who doesn't even know Hoxton) intentionally stir up a hornet's nest of cops by staging a very public, very dangerous raid to save Hoxton from police custody. Doesn't stop him from insulting all of them - especially Houston - a whole lot.
• Villain Protagonist: All of the main characters are ruthless thieves who have no problem with robbing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of money and goods from stores, killing cops, breaking into the local FBI office, working with some pretty nasty fellow criminals and even shooting innocent civilians, though at least that last one gets them a penalty.

Dallas (The Mastermind)

Make 'em remember the day they fought the PAYDAY Gang!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Simon Kerr (voice), Eric Etebari (The Web Series)

Associated with the Crew Chief perk deck

Nathan Steele, AKA Dallas, is undoubtedly an experienced, cunning, and methodical criminal. At the age of 30, he tried to play two of Chicago's mob families against each other. While initially successful, the plan went south fast, and several mob bosses ordered his head on a plate, but somehow he managed to go underground and survive.

After things calmed down, he worked his way back up the criminal ladder, bringing in Chains, Hoxton, Wolf, and eventually his brother, Houston, to found the PAYDAY Gang. Now he's the face that everyone fears. As the universe rolled on, and more live-action trailers were released, he became more and more of the official face of the game (outside of what little we see of Bain), serving as de-facto lead.

The Mastermind tree has three specialties: The Medic, the Controller, and the Sharpshooter. The Medic makes First Aid Kits and Doctor Bags more useful, as well as possessing the beloved Inspire skill, which instantly revives a crewmate from a distance when aced. The Controller is all about situation management, involving gaining buffs from taking hostages, as well as being able to recruit up to two cops to your team. The Sharpshooter grants buffs for assault rifles, SMGs and sniper rifles, with some requiring them to fire in single-fire modes, with buffs including improved accuracy and stability, doing more damage to marked enemies, and refunding a bullet after a couple of headshots.

The Crew Chief deck gives passive buffs in different fields. 8% damage reduction is given to everyone (while the Chief benefits at 16% when at half health) with an additional 8% with at least one hostage, 6% less damage from within medium range, a 50% stamina increase for all, a longer shouting distance, 10% more health for all (20% for the Chief), 15% more armor for all (10% for the Chief), and 6% max health and 12% stamina for each hostage for up to four taken. This makes it adaptable with almost any build, especially for a Mastermind, but there cannot be more than one Crew Chief, as the perks do not stack.

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• Annoying Video Game Helper: Invoked. During the back to the basics tutorial heist for stealth, Dallas complains about Bain putting him through simple things that he would have easily figured out on his own.
• Armor-Piercing Question: The Dentist asks him one when Dallas brushes off his attempts to get Dallas to help him do jobs for him. His reaction to the below quote is him being visibly shaken up and regretful at Hoxton's arrest.

The Dentist: "How did it feel... leaving him behind?"

• Boring, but Practical: The Crew Chief perk deck provides benefits for the whole crew, namely extra health, armor, stamina, and damage reduction. Maximum health and damage reduction depends on the amount of hostages taken. Damage reduction doubles for the player if their health is below 50%. It has no outstanding benefits compared to the other perk decks, making this more of a Master of None class, but playing the game effectively is pretty hard (especially on Death Wish and beyond) without some of those bonuses.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Though he'd never admit it, one of Bain's expository lines in the contact database reveals that Wolf once screamed at a group of civilians so ferociously that even Dallas pissed himself.
• Combat Medic: His main gameplay role in the second game along with being the mastermind. His class equipment is the medical bag and he can obtain several skills that involve using them more effectively along with special recovery abilities in general.
• Cold Sniper: He inherited Wolf's sharpshooter skills after the revamp and now the Mastermind skill tree has heavy focus on accurate single-shot weapons.
• Compelling Voice: Later levels allow Masterminds to make civilians stay down, make allies hurry up (with a speed boost), and can instantly revive an incapacitated friend just by shouting.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed example. When the story got more involved and deeper, certain heisters started getting more speaking roles in mission briefings and intro cutscenes for heists; specifically Duke, then Chains, and finally Hoxton. Dallas, for the most part did not, despite being the face of the crew. Finally subverted in the last heist, where his speaks in the intro cutscene, has a final live-action appearance in The End and gets more lines in the Safe House.
• Diabolical Mastermind: The second game even depicts him as the canonical "Mastermind", and most of his dialogue during heists indicates he's the most senior of the gang. Dallas' history also reveals that he had set two gangs against each other in order to profit from it and then went into hiding once the gangs found out they were tricked.
  • Dallas is also seen playing the FBI for fools in the web series; at the end of the bank heist, he has Houston punch him in the face so that he can pose as a victim in the robbery for the police. When Dallas is interviewed by an FBI agent on what Crime.net is, Dallas pretends that he has never heard of it.
• The Dragon: He canonically leads the gang during the heists and is Bain's second in command.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Houston's older brother, and the two occasionally get into brotherly ribbing during the Web Series. It's also implied in the Prison Nightmare heist that one of their deepest fears is the other getting downed and they can't help.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He seems to really really dislike the drug trade. Reflected in the "Dentist" trailer, where he refuses Novocaine for his tooth problem which has to be injected.^note Though, given Novocaine's tendency to loosen lips, this might be less of a moral stance and more of a necessity in making sure he doesn't blow his cover while under the influence. Also sort of reflected in his top tier skill set which allows him to revive others by yelling at them, without using the adrenaline shots everyone else uses.
    "Pain is just mental, get back in the fight buddy!"
  • The Hardcore Henry trailer has Dallas visibly disturbed by Akan's brutality on an ordinary waitress.
• Expy: Dallas looks very much like Neil McCauley from Heat. Just like Robert De Niro's character, he's the mastermind of the gang and he paraphrases an iconic line during the miniseries bank-job.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Dallas is two different characters depending on whether you're talking about his in-game self or his live-action/flavor text self. Live-action/flavor text Dallas is, as noted, a stoic, paranoid, calculating criminal mastermind. In-game Dallas has the personality of a retiree who decided to start robbing banks as a hobby. He yells as much as any other heister, calls everyone "buddy" and generally plays Team Dad instead of being a cold, detached authority figure. His lines drip with raw enthusiasm for heisting and often give the sense that the whole thing is kind of a game to him.
• Healing Factor: The Hostage Taker skill in the Mastermind tree gives him a large healing over time ability so long as the crew has at least one hostage under their control.
• Iconic Item: His mask, above any other in the group. You think PAYDAY, you think either the Thermal Drill (go get it), or that mask. Notably, he keeps it rather than throw it in Bain's grave in The End, a good sign he's not quite ready to call it quits, even after everyone else is ready to move on.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Dallas seems to prefer plan B to heists (run in and go loud), as heard if stealth fails.
  "I never liked Plan A anyway!"
• Made of Iron: Gets a dental filling without any painkillers. He reacts, but better than most probably would.
• Mook–Face Turn: The Joker skill allows a dominated enemy to aid your crew. Acing it and Partners in Crime increases their health and damage. Acing confident lets you recruit two of them.
• My Greatest Failure:The Dentist implies a downplayed version - he's not exactly angsting over it, but it's clear Dallas feels some regret (or responsibility) about Hoxton's arrest. Dallas is initially reluctant at best to go along with the Dentist's "requests", but when the Dentist drops one hell of an Armor-Piercing Question ^{that being...} ("How did it feel... leaving him behind?") and shows that he has access to Hoxton's prisoner transfer schedule, Dallas becomes much more willing to do his work.
• Properly Paranoid: In The Dentist trailer, Dallas can be seen looking a bit nervous due to a security camera being in the waiting room and sitting next to a cop. And when he drops his wallet, he pretends it isn't his when the cop tries to give it back to him. Subverted that the cop and the camera are the least of his worries when the Dentist working on Dallas' teeth reveals that he knows who he is and gives him some jobs to do for him. Dallas tries to get up from his chair once his identity has been discovered, only for the Dentist and his nurse to restrain him.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Cops, SWAT, and most other non-specials (if injured) can be made to give up, cuff themselves, and become a hostage. Later levels even allow for hostages to help you back up, and can even result in persuading an enemy into fighting for you. A skill by the same name allows a Mastermind to convince a hostage to trade themselves in for the Mastermind's release IMMEDIATELY, even during assault waves.
  • The Big Bank trailer shows the trope in full swing when Dallas ties up a civilian and leads him to the vault. Said civilian sees the crew in action when they clean the vault try and when the police frees him, he rushes to Dallas' side and revives him when he gets incapacitated by the cops. Dallas rewards the man later on by giving him a bundle of money. The character in question dubbed Bobblehead Bob more than likely was willing to do this because the bank supposedly refused to give him an investment on his Senpaidozer bobbleheads.
• Support Party Member: Out of all classes, The Mastermind has the least focus on personal combat effectiveness and most focus on team play.
• Terror Hero: Has the power to totally frighten and intimidate civilians or enemies, effectively scaring them into not running into gunfire.
• Walking the Earth: Rather, sailing the Earth, according to the Golden Ending. That is, until the events of PAYDAY 3.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: His default mask has an American flag print on it.
• Would Hit a Girl: In the "Hoxton Breakout" trailer, Dallas gets held at gunpoint by a female security guard and shoots her in the head with a concealed handgun.

Chains (The Enforcer)

Get the fuck up!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Damion Poitier

Associated with the Muscle perk deck

Nicholas, AKA Chains, always got into trouble as a teenager. After years of jumping between foster homes and juvenile institutions, he ended up in the military. There, he became an excellent soldier, but he always hated being told what to do. He also met John Wick during his service, and the two became close friends.

Chains later left the military and become a soldier of fortune, offering military expertise to the highest bidder. He eventually joined up with Dallas and the PAYDAY Gang, and the rest is history. As the universe rolls on and more live-action trailers are released, Chains has morphed into something of The Lancer, usually acting as and being trusted by Dallas as his second-in-command. Perhaps understandable being one of the originals, very experienced, and by comparison, not nearly as quirky as some of their other gang members.

The Enforcer specializes in being able to stay on the offensive and put up a strong defense with raw fire power. Their specialties are the Shotgunner, the Tank, and the Ammo Specialist. The Shotgunner provides buffs that greatly increases shotgun efficiency, such as faster reloading, reduced spread when aiming, and a temporary damage boost, which can also work for the OVE9000 saw, and for other weapons when aced. The Tank buffs the armor and makes the player more durable overall, such as being able to whack shields, wear the ICTV, regenerate armor with headshots, etc. The Ammo Specialist, as it implies, allows the user to be more ammo efficient, such as guaranteeing an extra ammo box to show up for every sixth kill, being able to bring two ammo bags, increase the efficiency of the OVE9000 saw, and more.

With the Muscle perk deck, the player draws in a little more attention than other players (15% increase). But on the plus side, they have an extra 80% maximum health, with all firearms being able to cause panic (which sometimes makes enemies hesitate to fight back), and a passive 3% health regeneration every five seconds that pass. A good deck to start out with and improves the player's survivability.

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• Awesome, but Impractical: The saw can cut through all but safe locks, and it even goes through secure doors like butter. That said, it chews through blades incredibly fast (even if used conservatively), requires spare ammo bags to feed it and takes up the primary weapon slot. Somewhat mitigated by rebalances, which now allow to carry it as a secondary with a perk.
• The Berserker: Damage perks mean that Enforcers actually lose less health and deal more damage when swarmed by cops; in other words, it's mostly better to charge straight into battle guns blazing.
• Bottomless Magazines: Laying down ammo packs can come with (very temporary) unlimited ammo and magazines. The issue, however, is that a bottomless magazine that is already empty doesn't work; an infinite amount of nothing is still nothing.
  • Post-Update 100 changed the skill to where you and your team mates gain infinite ammo for 5 seconds or more, depending on how much ammunition is replenished, plus 15 seconds when aced.
• Breakout Character: Very popular with the community, and got bigger speaking roles for most of the heists in 2018. Notably, the Crime.Net briefing for No Mercy is strictly him, lamenting what an unforseeable impact that heist from years ago had on the crew.
• The Brute: Played straight (and then some) with PAYDAY 2, as the Enforcer soaks up damage like a literal bullet sponge, can easily carry bags that would leave the rest of the crew struggling, and has a propensity for "loud" weapons, like shotguns and the OVE-9000 saw.
• Celebrity Paradox: When talking to him at the safehouse:
  "You seen that new Captain America movie? It's got some great actors in it! ^* Damion Poiteir plays a mercenary in the opening of Captain America: Civil War, not to mention having a non-speaking role as Thanos in The Avengers (2012)."
• Chainsaw Good: Whilst not a chainsaw, the OVE9000 comes close as an industrial, circular saw that doubles as a melee weapon.
• Chick Magnet: In the webseries, he is often portrayed enjoying the company of beautiful women. The trend continues in the John Wick update, where it is revealed that he has a lover in Sweden.
• Crazy-Prepared: Being a long time criminal requires Chain to be this. In the John Wick update trailer, Chains can be seen grabbing a suitcase that contains guns, a bulletproof vest, and his mask after he learns that the cops are about to raid his home. Chains also had a boat by the lake he could have used to escape, but when he gets shot and falls into the lake, we see Chains takes his preparedness one step further by having scuba gear planted at the bottom of the pier and he uses a device that blows up the house to destroy all evidence linking to him.
• Grease Monkey: Seems in charge of managing the firearms in the Safehouse.
• Healing Factor: The fully upgraded muscle perk deck provides a health regeneration every 5 seconds, in addition to an extra 80% of health.
• Mighty Glacier: The enforcer has a skill that allows the player to wear the improved combined tactical vest, providing the most armor, but also makes the wearer really slow. The muscle perk deck also provides extra health and a healing factor.
• Military Maverick: An actual example of this not working out; Chains got kicked out of the army because he was too trigger-happy and unreliable.
• More Dakka: Chains is almost always seen with a light machine gun in the trailers.
• The Other Darrin: While Hoxton's initial replacement has been explained with the revelation that he'd been arrested, Chains is effectively the same character — while they changed his face and voice actor, his backstory and personality remain consistent with the previous installment.
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, he spends his fortune to become a legitimate and incredibly successful stuntman, helping to revitalize practical effects in films. Subverted in 3, where he's one of the returning heisters.
• Required Secondary Powers: Carries the perks to wear the heaviest armor and use the OVE9000, presumably because they would cripple a layman.
• Scary Black Man: He is the member of the crew who most relies on offense, intimidation, and sheer brute force to complete his objectives. The muscle perk deck even grants any gun he fires a chance to cause panic among his enemies, and tends to draw focus when near by them..
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The weapon of choice, along with the saw. Buffs include extra damage, range, smaller bursts when aiming, faster reloaded or bigger mags and damage boosts.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Subverted. Originally, the game was supposed to feature entirely new heisters taking up the masks and names of the original four from PAYDAY: The Heist, but this only applied for Houston and Chains before the fans made it clear they didn't agree with this direction. Houston was very much a different person from Hox, but Chains was so synonymous with the original that you could hardly tell they were different people. While the original Hoxton returned via lore that explained he was arrested and set free during Hoxton's Breakout, leaving Houston to rename himself, Chains just sort of... melded with his predecessor to the point that they're completely one and the same; of all people, he's the one to lament how they gave Murkywater what they needed to infect and kill Bain all those years ago in the No Mercy heist.
• Talkative Loon: His pager responses can sometimes get even more out-there than Wolf's.
  • Motor Mouth: A stark contrast from Chains in the first game.
• Third-Person Person: Explained by Bain in one of his descriptions, is the reason why he keeps changing foster homes when he was kid and probably one of the distinctions of Ax-Crazy behavior which the Navy kicked him out from the first place. He just keeps calling himself "Chains" even before the PAYDAY heists.

Wolf (The Technician)

Keep drillin', you piece of shit!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Ulf Andersson (PAYDAY 2, The Web Series episodes 1 & 2), Christian Hicks (The Web Series episode 3-6), Nicklas Berglund (PAYDAY 3)

Associated with the Armorer perk deck

Wolf used to be a law abiding businessman, until the economy tanked. The recession reduced his business's source of income to just one client who eventually got cold feet and refused to pay. This sent Wolf's business into bankruptcy and his family into homelessness. Wolf snapped from the events, abandoning his family and taking on the persona of a Hollywood-style criminal. He now pursues a criminal career with the same determination that drove him when he used to run his company.

The Technician focuses on utilizing shaped charges and/or turrets to their fullest capacity, as their specialties are the Engineer, the Breacher, and the Oppressor. The Engineer focuses entirely on making sentry guns very effective, such as adding armor, carrying up to four, using AP rounds, etc, with one other skill allowing you to carry two deployables (although the secondary's efficiency is halved). The Breacher focuses on shaped charges and trip mines, as well as making drills more efficient, with skills such as adding an incendiary effect on the trip mines, making the drill work faster along with a small chance of restarting itself, carrying even more charges, etc. The Oppressor focuses on full auto weapons, namely LMGs, SMGs, and assault rifles, with skills allowing you to move and shoot at the same time, being able to stumble enemies, deliver a fraction of the headshot damage anywhere on an enemy body, have all guns pierce armor, etc.

The Armorer perk deck focuses on improving the armor for the player and their crew by providing an extra 35% of armor, and a 10% increase of their armor recovery rate. The Armorer also gains a two second invincibility to damage when armor depletes, but comes with a 15 second cooldown.

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• Ax-Crazy: Let's just say that Wolf really didn't take to poverty.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Wolf's sadism and brutality are primarily relegated to descriptions of him in flavor text and a few live-action/animated portrayals, mostly because his actions are limited to player behavior. His voice clips going Loud tend to be more unhinged than the other heisters, particularly marking special units, but since a lot of that is just a lot of screaming, and most of his stealth lines are his nervous and socially-awkward, he tends to come off less brutal sadism and more manic panic.
• Bad Liar: His pager responses consist entirely of him nervously stuttering out Blatant Lies of varying believability, in stark contrast to the rather Ax-Crazy behavior he normally presents.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the trailer for the Hoxton Breakout heist, Dallas and Wolf get ambushed by a Bulldozer. Wolf goes flying off the stairs when the Bulldozer shoots him and Dallas later suffers the same fate. Just when the Bulldozer is ready to kill Dallas, Wolf runs in yelling and leaps on the Bulldozer's back to distract him so Dallas can get to the control room.
• Creator Cameo: He shares his face, voice, backstory, and (technically) name with Overkill co-founder and former CEO, Ulf Andersson.
• Demolitions Expert: The charges allow him to cut huge chunks of time off a heist, by simply blasting a safe open or a door off the frame rather than whittling away with a saw or drill.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: Can be averted with the Lock N' Load skill, which allows the player to sprint and shoot at the same time.
• The Engineer: As the "Technician" implies, he acts as a more indirect Enforcer; while the former carves through with a saw, he uses (incendiary) charges, turrets and more efficient drilling methods. At the safehouse, he is seen near his gadgets, or observing the kill chamber with John Wick.
  • Slightly subverted, as his interaction with computers, tools and other gadgets outside of his skill tree are just as fast as his teammates.
• The Faceless: Although averted in-game, the web-series never has Wolf without his mask. Not until the Hardcore Henry trailer.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: Occasionally slips into Swedish when caught in a tight spot.
• Glass Cannon: Engineer class became this after the skill tree revamp. Wolf has a lot of firepower with his automatic weapons focus, Sentry Guns, and trip mines, but he doesn't have any skills that improve his survivability.
• It's Personal: When a bulldozer nearly kills him in the Hoxton Breakout trailer, he relishes the moments when he gouges out the dozer's eyes. Everyone else is shocked, but Wolf was adamant on making him suffer.
• Justified Criminal: While the others mostly do jobs for the personal gain, Wolf became a criminal because he lost all of his money doing honest work and didn't have any other options available to him.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Note well that it's in past tense: Wolf took to criminal activity way too well.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: He's a complete psychopath who is described as going from happy go lucky one moment to frothing mad the next, and he loves violence.
  • Best demonstrated in the Hotline Miami DLC teaser, where is seen tormenting a captive who's clearly outlived his usefulness, just because it's fun. Then he leaves him for Jacket to cap off the horror show.
  • The "Hoxton Breakout" trailer takes it up another notch; Wolf tackles a Bulldozer to the ground and uses a drill to drill through the face plate and into the guy's skull, laughing manically as he does so.
• Made of Iron: The armorer perk deck provides an armor boast of 35%, armor recovery increased to 20%, and 2 seconds of invincibility when the armor breaks (but comes with a 15 second cool down each time)
• More Dakka: The Engineer class has a focus on automatic weapons under the Oppressor skill tree. This is encouraged with the Body Expertize skill, which grants a fraction of the head-shot damage bonus to any other part of the body (30% basic, 90% aced), but can only work with automatic weapons at full auto mode.
• The Nicknamer: For some odd reason, he uses a wide range of nicknames when referring to Hoxton.
  "Hey Hox! Hoxtilicious! El Hoxo! Hoxtinite! Hoxtinator! Hoxtimo!"
• Noodle Incident: What did Wolf do that prompts Bain to specifically warn him to stay off the dance floor in Nightclub and Alesso Heists?
• Out of Focus: Due to Ulf Andersson, Wolf's voice actor, damaging his vocal cords and later leaving Overkill, Wolf has gotten no new dialogue or interaction lines with other characters while the others had their voice lines gradually updated. Even in the new safe house where each character had a few phrases recorded specifically for the safe house, Wolf's lines are just reused from his pager responses.
• Reality Subtext: In the Golden Ending, it's mentioned that he's believed to have decided to "get the fck out" of the criminal underworld. Wolf's voice actor left Overkill to start his own studio, and their first game (which didn't come out until after the end of PAYDAY 2) was named GTFO.
  • Wolf's origin story is also a heavy allegory to how Ulf's studio prior to Overkill, Grin, was left in financial trouble and shut down after Square Enix cancelled an Ivalice game they were to make.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Leaves the gang and returns to Sweden in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, where he's said to have gone underground and left crime behind. Though he does later return as one of the heisters in PAYDAY 3, where Wolf says he is glad his retirement is over.
• Sucks at Dancing: During the briefings for the Nightclub and Alesso Heist contracts, Bain explicitly tells Wolf to stay off of the dance floor. Though whether he's referring to this or something much more horrible that happened the last time Wolf was on a dance floor is left ambiguous.
• Token Evil Teammate: By far the most violent and sadistic of the crew, only rivaled by his implied best buddy, Jacket. It's especially prevalent in the supplemental material; for example, in the "Hoxton Breakout" trailer, he tackles a Bulldozer to the ground and kills him by drilling through his faceplate, laughing and hollering all the while. Dallas has to physically pull Wolf off the Dozer's corpse.
  Dallas: For fuck's sake, Wolf! Let's go!
  *random chatter in Breakout* Hoxton: Wolf. What you did to that Bulldozer back there was a bit... I think you need help, mate.
  • When Bain warns the crew against shooting civilians in the Mallcrashers opening, he specifically adds "This means you Wolf."
• Took a Level in Badass: By Update 100, Wolf's skill tree is fully refurbished, coming with an aggressive skill set meant on charging head on and a brand new turret that makes him and his turrets an even deadlier threat.
• The Turret Master: His Engineer skill tree grants him sentry guns that can distract enemies so his teammates can pay attention to more important matters. Perks in the tree include armor-piercing rounds, silencers, a protective shield, and the ability to carry and place up to four guns at a time.
• Villainous Friendship: He is implied to be good friends with Jacket, which would make a lot of sense. The two are seen "interrogating" a Russian gangster in the Hotline Miami DLC trailer and at the end of the hype train campaign, he is seen introducing Jacket to the rest of the crew.

Houston (The Ghost)

Don't act dumb.

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Derek Ray

Associated with the Rogue perk deck

The younger brother of Dallas, Houston could never hold a job, even if his life depended on it. His lifestyle eventually turned him to a life of cons and burglary. However, his debts continued to grow, as did his collection of enemies, and soon he needed larger and larger sums of money to keep the loan sharks at bay.

He committed his first major felony at age 24, and hasn't looked back once. Dallas eventually contacted him to fill the space left by Hoxton, and he's served loyally ever since. Despite his efforts, though, he struggles to be accepted by both his crewmates and the fandom.

After Hoxton was busted by the FBI, he took the mask, the codename, and the spot on the team. Once Hoxton was rescued, he let the boy keep the mask, but absolutely refused to let him keep the codename. It was here that he gained the name "Houston" in order to avoid confusion, emphasize his connection to Dallas, and keep Hoxton from beating the living shit out of him.

The Ghost focuses on being defensive and cunning, while also providing perks that are very useful for stealth operations, but also being able to fight just as well as the armored players when things go loud. The Ghost's specialties are the Shinobi, the Artful Dodger, and the Silent Killer. The Shinobi provides abilities to make stealth objectives easier and improve ECM efficiency, such as faster lock-picking, the ability to pick some safes, to being able to purchase additional assets, to make the ECMs last a longer, and more. The Artful Dodger has skills that helps the less advantaged player a chance to evade a quick demise, such as being able to cause enemies to stumble with each shot once armor breaks, being able to run faster, sabotage tasers, etc. The Silent Killer makes the Ghost a more effective combatant by taking advantage of suppressed weapons and critical hits, with skills like increased damage with silenced weapons, gaining greater critical hit chances with more concealment, gaining a critical hit boost for avoiding damage for a few seconds, etc.

The Rogue perk deck is all about dodge. The deck boasts a whopping 45% dodge increase, along with a 25% chance to pierce armor, faster weapon swapping, and a lower chance of getting shot at when you are near your crew. A classic among dodge builds as it possess high risk, high reward, but also relies on the mercy of the RNG.

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• And the Adventure Continues: He's one of the few members of the gang to not completely retire from the criminal lifestyle in the Golden Ending, instead opening a bar in Mexico and acting as a mediator for shady deals between gangs, criminals, and government officials.
• Berserk Button: Hoxton has become his ever since the Hoxton Breakout heist, not helped by Hoxton throwing no end of vitriol and insults his way. Later updates have updated Houston's callouts to Hoxton to reflect this, and he gives as good as he gets.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Houston is a little more on the quiet and even-tempered side, most of the time. Doesn't stop him from being a terrifyingly efficient bank robber.
• Boring, but Practical: Almost every perk the Ghost uses is passive and/or uninteresting. Granted, Ghost perks can make-or-break the harder heists, and are absolutely essential for stealth, but watching people use the OVE9000 saw and blast doors with C4 can feel a bit unfair when you've got "reduced cleaner costs", "quicker ladder climbing speed", and "reduced silencer penalties".
  • Simple, yet Awesome: The skill tree revamp, however, made the ghost tree just as beneficial as the rest while maintaining its subtlety. ECM feedbacks now have a cool down instead of being a one time use, and can turn turrets into temporary allies when deployed. There are skills that can increase the overall effectiveness of any weapon that you can put a silencer on (which is almost any of them that isn't a special weapon or LMG) which can outweigh boosts in other classes in certain respects. Finally, able to dish out critical hits under certain conditions, such as maintaining a high concealment, or simply staying in cover for four seconds to gain this bonus, depending on the skills.
• The Engineer: Shared with Wolf, with his specialty being electronics. He also repairs and maintains the crew's automobiles.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Dallas' younger brother, and the two occasionally get into brotherly ribbing during the Web Series. It's also implied in the Prison Nightmare heist that one of their deepest fears is the other getting downed and they can't help.
• Fragile Speedster: As with Dallas' Mastermind skills, his skill tree tends to focus on bullet-dodging and guile rather than armor. The Rogue perk deck exemplifies this, since it gives you an increase in dodge chance. Of course, all but one armor type has negative dodge, so it has a negligible effect... unless you wear only a two-piece suit. After the skill revamp his skill tree makes him more of a Glass Cannon, maintaining its focus on dodging and light armor but adding in powerful damage-boosting skills and critical hits.
• Gentleman Thief: If the suit didn't give it away, though there is a cat-pun in his perks.
• Grease Monkey: He can be found tinkering with a vehicle in the Safehouse.
• Legacy Character: When Hoxton was caught by the FBI, the crew needed someone to replace him. Houston stepped in and adopted Hoxton's alias and mask until Hoxton returned; Houston got to keep the mask but had to give up the code name.
• Ludicrous Precision: Can apparently mark a three-minute span of time to the second without needing a stopwatch.
• No-Respect Guy: His long-standing status as The Scrappy in the fandom has translated into this in-game, where he's subject to numerous take-thats, mostly from Hoxton.
  Hoxton: "Hey, shit for brains! Come with me!"
• Only Sane Man: Aside from being notably less excitable than the other crew members, Houston has some of the most normal responses to guards' pagers...
  • Deadpan Snarker: ...the ones that aren't, however, are dry enough to use as sandpaper.
• Properly Paranoid: Houston shows shades of this in the web series where he grows extremely concerned that the cops will track the crew to their safe house and find incriminating evidence, such as the dead bodies. Chains brushes it off and tells Houston to relax.
  • Then players got the new safehouse, which is frequently raided.
• Random Number God: The Ghost's Commando subtree thrives on dodge mechanics, meaning that survival depends entirely on enemy miss probability. Provided you boost it well enough (e.g., into the sixties or seventies), you can become a Glass Cannon that runs entirely on the hope that bullets aren't going to cause damage.
• The Rival: Seems to have settled into this role with Hoxton, as shown in the "Hoxton Breakout" trailer.
• Sad Clown: His mask evokes this image, although his personality doesn't fit as well. However, the descriptions for his room upgrades post-Housewarming imply he's depressed.
• Safecracking: He gains this as a late-tier skill, allowing him to bypass certain locks without the use of a drill.
• Take Up My Sword: For a time, he used Hoxton's codename as well as his mask. Once Hoxton returned, he was forced to give the alias back, though he got to keep the mask.
• Taking You with Me: One perk allows for backfiring a Tazer's attack through his line, hurting them both.
• The Teetotaler: Only drinks root beer after and between jobs in order to keep himself sharp for the next heist.
• Useless Security Camera: Final level powers allow for tricking cameras through hacking.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Originally held the final tier "Lucky Charm" perk to increase rare drops, though basic mathematics showed that it cost just under $2.5m to max it for a 1.86% total boost. Thankfully, it was removed in an update and made a passive skill for all Perk Decks.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Even though his skill tree's focus on silenced weapons emphasizes stealth, one skill can give a total of 30% bonus damage to all silenced weapons. Another increases stability and accuracy with silenced weapons, too. The game lets you put a silencer on almost any gun, including light machine guns and shotguns, and the bonuses always outweigh the penalties. A later update removed the skill that increased damage, however, leaving increased general accuracy as the only benefit for investing in silencer skills.

Hoxton (The Fugitive)

Did ya miss me, ya wankers?! HAHAHAHAHA!!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Pete Gold (voice), Josh Lenn (Hoxton Breakout trailer)

Associated with the Crook perk deck

The original bearer of the codename Hoxton, James Hoxworth got his nickname after being arrested as a teenager in the East End of London. After doing time in HMYOI, he worked with several crime syndicates in his 20's, until he finally joined the PAYDAY Gang. After a successful stint of major heists up until 2011, Hoxton was captured by the FBI and sent to prison.

Hoxton is rescued from the FBI in the Hoxton Breakout heist, at a courthouse hearing arranged by the Dentist's contacts in the District Attorney's office. Players must complete the heist in order to unlock him as a playable character, though his perk deck — The Crook — and Skill Tree are available from the start.

His codename was briefly inherited by his replacement, now known as Houston, but he's regained the title now that he's back.

The Fugitive is all about surviving at any cost, with the player doing everything possible to stay alive and dish out damage with pistols and their own fists. Their specialties include the Gunslinger, the Revenant, and the Brawler. The Gunslinger is for buffing pistols, including akimbos, with buffs such as faster reloading, a faster firing rate, and increasing the stability and ammo pool for akimbos. The Revenant is all about keeping yourself alive, and providing buffs if you survive, such as getting an additional down before going into custody, a chance to instantly get revived when going down, the ability to revive yourself by taking an enemy with you, etc. The Brawler makes melee combat more optimal, as well as making you more dangerous, with abilities like 100% more melee damage with every kill (up to 1600%) to use once at a time, being able to counter cloakers, gaining increased damaged at 50% health, and more the lower it gets, etc.

The Crook provides a compromise between dodge and armor builds, providing 40% dodge (25% of which only applies if you're wearing one of the three ballistic vests), 65% more armor for ballistic vests, and a 10% recovery rate. While the benefits are not impressive compared to either the Armorer and Rogue decks, it can still be effective when utilized properly.

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• Berserk Button: Hoxton cannot stand civilians. While the other heisters will shout and threaten the civvies to keep them down, Hoxton practically screams vulgarities at them.
  Hoxton: Stay down. Yeah, I'm talking to you. No, don't answer back, you twat!
  • And, of course, there's Houston...
• Black Comedy: Should Wick be present in the breakout mission, he may innocently ask how Wick's family is. Given that this takes place after the movie...
  Hoxton: John motherfuckin' Wick. I thought you'd got out. How's the family?
  *Beat, just long enough for Hoxton to receive a Death Glare*
  Hoxton: *confused* What, did I say something bad?
• Blood Knight: His skillset hints that he is much more prone to slaughtering innocents rather than tying them up. With Winston Wolfe and Undertaker Aced, he could slaughter and hide large numbers of them with relative ease.
• Cluster F-Bomb: In the Hoxton Breakout trailer, Hoxton unleashes a huge barrage of F bombs and other kinds of swearing as his crew drags him to the escape truck due to his shrapnel injury from the C4.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Hoxton was in jail, he asked his lawyer if there was anything that could be done to set him free. The lawyer replied that he was "out of mana"^note Mana is a term frequently used in fantasy games to show how much magic power someone has., meaning there was nothing more he could do. Hoxton, not understanding what mana meant, thinks that his lawyer ran out of money and is holding out for more.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Never stops harassing Houston and Dallas about it during the breakout.
• Counter-Attack: One of Hoxton's skills is the ability to use a melee weapon to counter enemies that melee him and knock them down. Acing the skill lets him counter Cloakers if they try to kick him.
• Dented Iron: One of the few heisters with visible external injuries, not that this stops him from being just as sturdy as the rest of the crew. Strangely enough, his face seems to have healed up nicely by the Golden Ending.
• Demoted to Extra: Hoxton Breakout, Hoxton Revenge and the Christmas album aside, his place in the Main Four (Dallas, Wolf and Chains being the other three) has been almost entirely replaced by Houston, though he does make the odd appearance here and there. Averted in the Locke and Load event's comic, where he's the group's fourth member once again, with no Houston in sight. And then averted further in Hell's Island and The White House Heist, where he gets a full speaking role and thus canonically is along for both the liberation of Bain and the biggest heist of all.
• Desperation Attack: Swan Song lets Hoxton hold out for a few seconds if his health is fully depleted, allowing him to lay waste to cops or retreat to safety so he can go down behind cover. Acing the skill lets Hoxton hold out longer and also grants him infinite ammo so that he can utterly destroy cops as a last ditch move before becoming incapacitated.
• The Determinator: The Revenant tree is all about avoiding death, and becoming far more threatening in the process. Revenants are VERY good at not-dying.
• Even Evil Has Standards: If Wolf is present on the Hoxton Breakout heist, he may comment about a moment in the trailer, where Wolf killed a Bulldozer by way of drill to the eye where even he sounds a little unnerved.
  "Wolf. What you did to that Bulldozer back there was a bit... I think you need help, mate!"
• Fragile Speedster: To a lesser extent than the Ghost set, but still there; his Crook perk deck gives dodge bonuses, but only to ballistic vests (which are less armored than the flak jacket and tactical vests). To get the most out of it, he needs to wear a Light Ballistics Vest, which is the second lightest armor in the game, but he'll be much faster than most of his allies.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The left side of Hoxton's face bears severe burn scarring. Based on the fact that his mask is similarly burned, it's likely this happened when he was apprehended.
  • Word of God states that Hoxton got the burns from an inmate throwing industrial bleach on his skin. Not as flashy as a burn gotten from a Last Stand, but certainly just as painful.
  • Subverted in the true PAYDAY 2 ending when his burn scar is gone, indicating that he used the money to rectify his skin.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Day 2 of the Hoxton Breakout has him aid the crew with a pistol. Unlike the team AI, Hoxton can't be ordered around and he's completely invincible from enemy gunfire.
• Guns Akimbo: Pre-update 100, Hoxton can dual wield certain pistols as a primary weapon like John Wick can, but unlike Wick, he has a skill dedicated to dual pistols so the player can use it if they don't want to use the related perk decks.
  • The Gunslinger: Post-update 100, since Akimbo weapons no longer require a skill, the Fugitive tree simply possesses a skill to decrease the stability penalty and increase the ammo pool by 50%. He also inherited all the pistol skills (and then some) that were present in the Mastermind tree.
• He's Back!: Hoxton being replaced by Houston (who was called Hoxton at that point) was one of the more controversial changes from the first game...so Old Hoxton was eventually reintroduced due to fan demand, complete with an elaborate heist to break him out of jail.
  • One of the first things he does after the crew breaks him out? Surprise a group of SWAT Mooks when he bursts out from under a tarp in the back of the truck dual wielding assault rifles, saving Chains and Houston. Cue casual danger dialogue.
  Hoxton: *Smirks* Got anymore guns?
  *Houston shoots a mook aiming at Hox*
  Hoxton: ... At least he's not completely useless.
• Jack of All Trades: Unlike the other skill trees, Hoxton's Fugitive skills are all based on multiple situations rather than being specialized in a particular field. He has a lot of focus on pistols, both on their own and paired up, as well as increased effectiveness with melee weapons and increased survivability in extreme situations. However this all comes at the cost of decreased effectiveness as a team player, since Fugitive doesn't provide any team focused skills or bonuses for deployable items.
• Jerkass: In keeping with his shtick as a mean Brit, he continuously insults and demeans the rest of the crew - especially Houston - even as they bust him out of jail. He tries to be nice to John Wick, but winds up accidentally provoking him anyway.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Later heists and events he appeared in toned this back a bit; his dialogue is overall less hostile, his Inspire quotes are outright friendly and encouraging, and he'll often celebrate and congratulate his fellow heisters on success. He still hates civilians, though. Oh, and Houston.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: On his own, the Fugitive isn't impressive; skill with pistols, but the Crook perk deck only provides minimal armor paired with middling dodge, making for a weak first impression. Then the Revenant and Berserker skill trees come into play, and the Fugitive becomes one of the hardest-hitting, hardest-to-keep-down heisters. Combine with Crook's focus on light armor, and he'll usually be the fastest, too.
• Lightning Bruiser: Superb damage from the Berserker tree, combined with the associated perk deck focusing on (very) light armor and emphasizing speed.
• London Gangster: He hails from Oop North rather than London, but otherwise plays this trope straight with a lot of focus on melee, a foul mouth and being a Nouveau Riche with his own butler and everything.
• A Man of Wealth and Taste: He clearly enjoys a luxurious lifestyle and he eventually gets so bored with the poor state of the crew's safe house that he decides to burn it down and buy a new one.
• Mythology Gag: Invoked in his lines, as he mentions that everyone must have missed his lovely English accent.
  "Did ya miss me, wankers?!"
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The first character for whom this is completely averted - while "Nathan Steele" (Dallas) and "Nicholas" (Chains) may be aliases, "Jim Hoxworth" likely isn't, else the prison system would not be using it in their official documents.
• Oop North: Voiced again by Pete Gold, Hoxton hails from Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
• Prison Rape: Mentions attempts at this as one of the dangers associated with being imprisoned. Given who he is, it's unlikely that anyone actually succeeded, but the danger was bad enough for him to temporarily consider giving up crime.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Believes that someone ratted him out to the FBI, leading to his arrest. As it turns out, he was right.
  • Hallucinations in the Prison Nightmare heist also implies he's terrified a second mole may be in the crew. And he's right again— it's the Dentist.
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, he retires from crime entirely, buying the Golden Grin Casino and spending his retirement partying on the beach and playing poker for fun. Subverted in 3, where he's one of the returning heisters.
• Sanity Slippage: While not unhinged, especially compared to many of the other heisters, it's clear his stint in jail didn't do him many favours.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Compared to the rest of the crew, Hoxton swears up a storm like no one's business. This gets worse if he happens to be on the same team as Houston since Hoxton refuses to actually use Houston's name, instead using a variety of colorful epithets.
• Stock British Phrases: To a ludicrous degree; the drill isn't broken, it's "bollocks'd up".
  • He deliberately invokes this in the Breakout, claiming the crew missed his 'lovely English accent' before calling them all wankers.
• Super-Reflexes: His Fugitive tree is (quite appropriately) based around evasion and dodging. As a counter to the Mighty Glacier high-armor builds, several perks boost "dodge" granted as armor reaches zero. After the skill tree overhaul the focus instead shifts from this to his capability to survive in extreme situations.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Hoxton was very crass in the first game, but he rarely ever snapped at his teammates. By the time Hoxton is busted free for the sequel, he is much more abrasive and goes out of his way to pick on and berate Houston. It's to the point that he refuses to call Houston by his name, instead filling the blank with vulgarities. Even when Hoxton is incapacitated, he still calls Houston with vulgarities when asking for his help. Later patches and heists turned this down, but he's still much more bitey than in the first game.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Yeah. He's somewhat grateful to his old friends, but when Houston's involved, the guy never gets so much as a "thank you," even after he saves Hoxton's life.
  • The same applies for Hoxton Breakout, as he spends less time thanking the crew and more time shouting about how they took their time getting to him.
  • Hilariously translated to gameplay, but only when dealing with Houston. When downed, Hoxton will still cry out to him desperately for help... right after calling him more insulting and vulgar nicknames.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With most of the crew - he trades a great deal of insults with them, but at the end of the day he's glad to be back with them. Except Houston. He hates Houston.
• Weapon Specialization: Pistols. Especially dual pistols, albeit only with half the stability penalty reduction as the Hitman perk deck provided. Thankfully, both the Akimbo skill, and the perk deck do synergize.

John Wick (The Hitman)

No mercy, no surrender!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Loosely based on Keanu Reeves, Dave Fouquette (voice)

John Wick was once a feared Hitman, known among some of the largest crime syndicates in the country. After having gone dark for some time, he resurfaced and, through a series of odd coincidences, wound up helping his old buddy Chains out of a sticky situation in Sweden. In return for his help, Wick asked for a spot on the team. How could Chains say no?

Added during Crimefest 2014 as part of a promotional deal with Lionsgate Studios, Wick is the title character of their critically acclaimed thriller John Wick. While he doesn't add a new class, like Hoxton, he does come with an extra perk deck - The Hitman, which allows players to Dual Wield secondary weapons (pistols and, later, some submachine guns) as a primary. And no, he's not voiced by Keanu Reeves.

In mid-2015, when it was announced that John would be getting his own game (not made by Overkill), it was also announced that more John Wick content would be included in PAYDAY in even more Canon Welding. This eventually resulted in the John Wick Weapon Pack in late 2016, adding a few new weapons that showed up in the film, including Wick's signature pistol. Another DLC was added in February 2017, just in time for the release of John Wick: Chapter 2 that sees the gang assisting the concierge of the Continental.

The Hitman focuses on being able to stay aggressive provided you play carefully, with a faster armor recovery rate (45%), 50% extra ammo and 8% stability for akimbos, and armor recovering within 1.5 seconds of breaking, which never gets interrupted. This perk deck allows one to get aggressive, and to spend as little time in cover as possible, allowing those to get straight back into the fight. The akimbo perks also stack with the akimbo skill in the Gunslinger subtree, making this an excellent complement.

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• Adaptational Villainy: John Wick in his home series is a reserved hitman who's got an aversion to killing civilians and innocents, and his rampages were waged against criminal groups who screwed with him too badly. Here, he's a career criminal like his fellow heisters who kill cops, burglarize places for money/drugs/treasure and can kill as many civilians as whoever's playing him deems necessary. As far as heisters go though, he's probably the most straight-edge and reserved of the group.
• Big Damn Heroes: The John Wick character trailer has him warning Chains of a police ambush, and providing cover fire, all while requesting the crew's services.
  Chains: Hey Wick! Did you get the heat on me?!
  Wick: *shoots a cop in the head* Does that answer your question?
  Chains: ...welcome to the crew!
• Canon Welding: Given that John's now joined the crew and information in his bio, his movie seemingly has happened in this universe and John has returned fully to a criminal lifestyle or the PAYDAY 2 canon is an alternate universe to his. The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue implies that PAYDAY 2 is a Stealth Prequel to the first John Wick film.
• Consummate Professional: Much of his dialogue reflects this - where other characters would be cracking jokes and getting emotional, he keeps his cool and gets straight to the point. He also spends most of his time in the Safehouse training and holds most of the crew's marksmanship records.
• Cool Shades: His default "mask" since he refused to wear a mask when Chains told him that he needed one (though he'll still wear a mask if the player wishes him to). The update that he came with also added a few extra pairs, based on the Cool Shades from other famous films.
• Determinator: When Wick is revived, his lines usually reflect his determination to get back into the fight, such as "This time, it's personal!"
  • Post-Update 100 grants his perk deck faster armour recovery, and a guaranteed 1.5 seconds full recovery should his armour break. This means that he'll go straight back into the fight within 1.5 seconds, regardless if bullets are still raining on him!
• Evil Wears Black: Wick's entire outfit is colored black.
• Guest Fighter: Essentially what he is, though he is more integrated into the game and its universe than most examples. For instance, much like the rest of the PAYDAY Gang, one of his biggest character traits is his Undying Loyalty as well as being a Determinator able to keep going through sheer grit and medicine.
• Guns Akimbo: The main focus of his perk deck.
• He's Back!: He'll say this sometimes when he gets revived, in reference to one of the more iconic lines from the movie.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Bain mentions in his database entry that he came out of retirement to hunt down some thugs who killed his dog - indeed, this is a major part of the film's plot. As part of a 2016 update, an achievement was added to the Bank Heists where the gang is rewarded for kidnapping a pair of punks which are heavily implied to have sent John a video of them killing a dog... and according to Bain, John wants "to have a little chat with them".
  • Interesting to note is that one of the masks from the John Wick heist pack is a mask of Daisy the dog.
• Hero of Another Story: Is the main protagonist of the titular film series.
• It's Personal: Often says something along these lines whenever he's been revived, regardless if said enemy is alive or not.
  • Wick also said this for the Brooklyn 10-10 heist, in reference to helping Charon.
• Memetic Mutation: One of Bain's database quips regarding him mentions that he has an "ageless physique," referencing the theory that Keanu Reeves is, in fact, immortal.invoked
  • Many of his pager response start with Keanu's trademark "Woah." He'll also scream "WOAH, SNIPER!" whenever he calls one out.
  • He only has ONE line when putting a loot bag into the drop-off, which is, in fact:
  "ONE!"
• Mythology Gag: A lot of his lines reference moments or quote things from the movie, including, but not limited to: "Bourbon would be perfect right now!" (Wick uses Bourbon as an anaesthetic in the movie), "You have no idea how much damage I can do with a pen!" (Viggo says John killed three men with a pencil in the movie, it's possible to unlock a pencil as a melee weapon in-game and you see him actually use a pencil in Chapter 2), "Fortus Fortuna Adjuvat!" ("Fortune favors the Bold", which would be John's tattoo), "Yeah, I'm back!" ("Yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back!" is one of the movie's most famous lines), etc.
• Nonstandard Character Design: A minor case. Unlike the rest of the crew, he doesn't have an actual mask, instead having sunglasses. This was reflected in the character select icons prior to them being changed, as while the other heisters' had their masks represent them, John Wick had his own face as his icon.
• Retired Badass: In the Golden Ending epilogue he leaves the killing business behind, getting married and adopting a dog. He gets pulled back into the killing game when some thugs shoot his dog, mirroring the events of the film.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Downplayed. He is one of the only few heisters to not use profanity in their dialogue, though he uses an F-word when controlling civilians.
• Token Good Teammate: He is a straight-up criminal with few heroics here, but he is also one of the least bloodthirsty member of the entire crew, and frequently brings up the possibility of an honest job in the safehouse.
• Weak, but Skilled: With update 100, his perk-deck changed considerably. As a hitman, he gets increased stability and ammunition with akimbo weapons (in addition to the skills on the fugitive tree, if any are applied), and has faster armor recovery, allowing him to get back into the fight faster. Armor recovery will also kick in in 1.5 seconds should it deplete. Unlike normal circumstances where any gunfire will interrupt the recovery period, it never gets interrupted with this perk deck. ^{Pre-Update 100} Wick's Hitman perk deck lets him dual-wield pistols while having massive stability loss and he also gains the ability to regenerate his armor faster at the cost of having less durable armor. Skilled players can lay waste to cops with just dual pistols alone and if they take enough cover, their fast armor regeneration can put them back in the game a lot sooner.
• Weapon Specialization: Like with Hoxton, Guns Akimbo pistols. More specifically, Chimano Compacts, which came with his character pack. Pre-Update 100, his Hitman Perk Deck would allow him to dual wield, but it had more penalties than the Fugitive skill itself. Post-Update 100, akimbo weapons are now able to be equipped without a skill, with the perk deck simply providing stability and ammo pool bonuses instead, in addition to the skills in the fugitive tree. The later weapon pack added the Contractor Pistol(s), Wick's signature HK P30Ls from the film.

Clover (The Burglar)

I wanna hear those bullets roar!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Aoife Duffin

Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, Clover (real name Rochelle) first met Hoxton years ago when she tried to run a con on him, though he quickly saw through the act due to his years of experience. Seeing a bit of himself in the girl, Hoxton worked with Clover on a few heists across the UK, until one day she stole his share of the take and escaped in a ferry, giving him a two-fingered salute as she disappeared. He couldn't have been prouder.

The seventh playable heister, Clover was teased during a Crimefest 2014 stream, singing Happy Birthday as her clown mask was revealed. Clover narrates the history of the diamond in the trailer for The Diamond, and must be purchased through DLC to be unlocked as a playable character. Like John Wick, she lacks a Skill Tree, instead bringing a new perk deck, The Burglar.

The Burglar is similar to the Rogue in play-style, but with a greater emphasis on stealth. With a 25% dodge, they also benefit from 20% armor recovery and are 20% less likely to be targeted as long as they stay put and crouch. They also can crouch-walk faster with a 10% boost. For stealth, they are able to bag corpses faster, pick locks faster, and respond to pagers faster. A great choice for those who wish to stealth a heist, but otherwise, it provides minimal benefits for when they go loud.

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• Action Girl: Goes without saying.
• Butter Face: Invoked - The community specifically asked for Clover not be a stereotypically attractive female. After her release, most people agree she looks perfectly fine with her mask on, but without it she's not very appealing.
• Call to Agriculture: In the Golden Ending, she buys a castle in Ireland with her ill-gotten gains and starts a career breeding show horses.
• Carry a Big Stick: Her signature melee weapon is a shillelagh. Like the baton, it possesses high knockdown chance but low damage.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: While her language and demeanor don't fit the bill, like the rest of the gang, she fits the dress-code, and her Burglar Deck is one of two perk decks designed for aiding with stealth missions (The other being Hacker, which was released much later on in 2018).
• Con Man: She had attempted to swindle money off of Hoxton and would have succeeded if it wasn't for Hoxton knowing the same tricks of being a con artist.
• Distaff Counterpart: She's no different from the rest of the crew other than being female, and can run and gun with the best of them.
• Fake Static: One of her pager responses is using it... badly. As always, it somehow works.
• Fighting Irish: Like most of her family.
• Girly Bruiser: Usually not, but one of her lines when equipping her mask humorously uses this.
  "Alright, alright, let a lady get her face on."
  • In terms of backstory, she came from a generation of fighters, and she is no stranger to getting her own fists dirty.
• Irony: As a burglar, she spent most of her career learning how to get around security systems to avoid being spotted. In the new safe house, she's in charge of the security system and she points out how ironic it is.
• Laughing Mad: Clover sometimes lets out a sinister cackle when she scores a kill on a special SWAT unit.
• Nervous Wreck: Comes off as one when heists go loud, as she more than anyone else in the gang seem terrified of the special SWAT units, screaming and stuttering often times. Often times she'll also laugh to herself when downing a special, a common thing people do when they're very suddenly relieved of stress. Justified considering she's a burglar and a con-artist, the type of criminal who prefers to deal with things quietly, as reflected by her perk deck.
• No Indoor Voice: Clover is loud, at least outside of stealth, and almost all of her voice lines during assault waves consist of her screaming out her orders.
• Out of Focus: Storywise, much like Bonnie and Sokol (who were hired for specific jobs), Clover is only relevant for precisely one job; The Diamond Heist. She gets into the gang because of her knowledge of the titular diamond, and she knows Hoxton from their time working together in the past, and presumably had information that could lead to his freedom. Gameplay-wise however, her perk deck is the only deck geared specifically toward stealth (Hacker being the only other deck that even comes close to this, but Hacker is also a very good loud deck), meaning this trope will never apply gameplay-wise.
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, she leaves the criminal life behind entirely and starts breeding horses.
• Scotireland: The character went through three voice changes, going from Irish in her announcement, Scottish in her teaser, and then back to Irish for her recordings. Naturally, the yoyo-ing between the two and the accent similarities has been somewhat confusing to non-Brits. In fact, Bonnie came out of this kerfuffle.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Clover's vulgarity almost rival Hoxton's. Considering who her mentor was, this is not exactly surprising.
• The Smurfette Principle: Before Bonnie, Sydney, Hila and Joy joined the Gang, she was the only playable character circa early 2015 to be female. This was enforced in the Road to Crimefest 2015, as being one of only two girls in the PAYDAY Gang at that time she's needed to enter one of the paths to Cagliostro's treasure.
• The Sneaky Gal: She comes with the only Perk Deck in the game that offers direct suitability towards stealth.
• So Long, Suckers!: Stole a shipment full of guns and then abandoned Hoxton while making a gesture at him. Strangely, Hoxton didn't seem to mind and admires Clover for having the balls to pull off such a stunt.

Dragan (The Infiltrator)

You can't kill me! I'm invisible!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Dragomir Mršić

A crooked Interpol agent from Croatia, Dragan Zubović has made a lucrative career out of playing both sides. He makes his big break when he betrays his assigned partner from Budapest to the Butcher, who in turn sends him on a mission to the US to join the PAYDAY Gang as part of her deal with Bain.

Added as part of Overkill's Crimefest collaboration with Lion Game Lion, Dragan is the second heister to be made available through paid DLC. He stars in the announcement trailer for the "Bomb Heists", a DLC pack containing jobs from a new contact, The Butcher. Like Wick and Clover before him, he brings a new perk deck to the table — The Infiltrator — as opposed to a full skill tree.

The Infiltrator is designed to stay within medium range and take advantage of the damage reduction they benefit from, with any enemy within medium range reducing the damage taken by 18%, and an addition 8% if there are three or more of them. Each melee hit also increases damage by 20%, which can be stacked up to 80% and last for seven seconds at a time. Finally, they are able to leech health from enemies, a whopping 20% just from hitting them, but it comes with a ten second cooldown. Ideal for those who enjoy fighting in close range and favor melee attacks.

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• Actor Allusion: Shares a number of similarities with Dragomir Mrsic, his actor. Firstly, Dragomir was involved in a bank robbery in his youth. It even continues with the ending, in which he retires from crime and turns over a new leaf as a legitimate (and highly successful) gym owner. This is almost exactly what happened with Dragomir himself, who currently works as an actor and the owner of the gym "Extreme Training."
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Encouraged with melee attacks, where each successful hit can increase the base damage by 20% (up to 80%) for seven seconds. Landing one also heals 20% of the total health back.
• Balkan Bastard: A corrupt Croatian Interpol agent.
• Close-Range Combatant: Dragan's Infiltrator perk deck encourages melee combat by increasing a player's attack power and defense when he is near enemies.
• The Comically Serious: Extremely calm and the least likely of the crew to jump, startle, or yell. His pager responses are also reasonable and professional. Usually.
  • Just... listen to this pager response of his.
    "The radio is near my crotch. My boner pressed the button, not me."
• Deadpan Snarker: Most evidenced in his pager responses where his voice is as dry as humanly imaginable.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Just listen to his pager quotes.
• Fake Static: A surprisingly common tactic of his for answering the pager. The fact that it works says a lot about the man on the Pager.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: Will often start speaking Croatian when he's really excited or angry.
• Irony: Others in the PAYDAY Gang would poke fun at his weight and looking unhealthy. After the safehouse update, he has a gym in the basement, and will sometimes mock other crew members that they need to hit the gym to so they can work off their "baby fat".
• Informed Attribute:
  • His infiltration skills... don't really show up in his perk deck, which is instead focused on close-quarters and damage resistance.
  • According to several heisters' remarks in the Safehouse, he's out of shape. He doesn't look the part in-game, though; the first-tier upgrade for his gym in the new safehouse indicates they could just be teasing him.
• Life Drain: A fully upgraded Infiltrator deck allows the player to drain 20% health back just from hitting an enemy with a melee weapon, but comes with a 10 second cool-down.
• Mercy Kill: Suggested in a couple lines regarding himself when damaged to critical health.
• The Mole: Until he betrayed his partner to The Butcher, he was this to Interpol. He's since become a full-time criminal.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Surprisingly, his ending in which he retires from crime and turns over a new leaf as a legitimate (and highly successful) gym owner is exactly what happened with the model for his physical appearance
• Reformed Criminal: While he doesn't immediately give up his life of crime in the Golden Ending, originally working as The Butcher's business partner, he eventually goes straight and becomes a legitimate, successful gym owner.
• The Dragon: Pun nonewithstanding, he seems to be this for The Butcher. Even after joining the gang, his true loyalties seem to lie with her. He continues working with her for a time after the True Ending before eventually retiring and opening a world-class gym.
• Victory Is Boring: Unlike most of the crew, Dragan returns to a life of crime in the Golden Ending, but soon grows bored and instead turns over a new leaf as a legitimate (and highly successful) gym owner.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: In the 2016 E3 teaser trailer, Dragan trades quips with Dallas with insults like "I don't like your face" and "You Americans always have an answer for everything". Seeing that the two of them and Chains are laughing at the jabs, it's implied that while the group may not like each other that much, they can at least trust each other. Also, several crew members will jab at him being 'out of shape' knowing he's a fitness nut, just to annoy him.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: His mask has part of the Croatian Coat of Arms on its forehead, rather like Dallas's American Flag mask.

Jacket (The Sociopath)

Do you know what time it is?

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Carmen Duran Garcia, Damien Faity Rougier, Antonella Giannini, Holger Buhr (voices)

Jacket may be the last one to brag – in fact, he doesn’t speak at all – but his murderous exploits have made him a feared name in the criminal underworld. Allegedly, he wiped out the entire Russian mafia in Miami all on his own back in 1989. His military background and unflinching attitude towards over-the-top violence have made him an excellent hitman – or “messenger” as some prefer to call him. For unknown reasons, he remains completely mute and chooses to communicate only with the help of a tape recorder – playing back bits and pieces of language learning tapes, PAs and documentary narrations instead of speaking.

The third DLC heister and arguably the most unexpected of them all, Jacket is the Silent Protagonist of Hotline Miami. He comes equipped with a set of new weapons and a perk deck - The Sociopath. Unlike the other paid DLC characters, Jacket's DLC cannot be bought by itself - it is exclusively available through purchasing Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number's Digital Special Edition on Steam. However, as Wrong Number was infamously banned in Australia, players residing there can instead email OVERKILL with proof of Aussie citizenship and then eventually be granted the DLC for free.

The Sociopath benefits from a 6% damage reduction when an enemy is within medium range. What makes it impressive is the 30% armor regeneration (60% if within medium range) for each enemy killed, plus a 10% health regeneration if the kill was done with a melee weapon. Also, a 75% chance to spread panic for each kill leaves surrounding enemies hesitating to fight back, leaving plenty more free targets. The last three effects have a one second cooldown. This is for players who are able to keep up the offensive to keep their armor up, and also great for melee attacks, especially when paired with the buffs in the Brawler subtree.

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• Achilles' Heel: The Sociopath perk deck is terrifyingly effective against swarms of cops with light-to-medium damage weapons in close-quarters combat, but burst damage or tougher targets (in particular, Snipers and Bulldozers) can easily shut a Sociopath down before he can get close enough for his deck to matter. Fitting, since a run-in with police snipers made for a That One Level in his home series.
• Adaptational Villainy: In his home series, he was an Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain Protagonist who repeatedly Pet the Dog and had sympathetic motivations. His PAYDAY incarnation is a complete lunatic who only doesn't tear the other Clowns apart because he's on the same side as them. Everything else is fair game.
• Alternate Continuity: Hotline Miami takes place in 1989, while PAYDAY 2 takes place in the present day. Between his youthful appearance and the ending of the sequel, it's utterly impossible for the two games to exist in the same timeline. The Prison Nightmare heist features a voiceline that heavily implies he's not the real Jacket however.
• And the Adventure Continues: Unlike most of the crew, he returns to his life of crime in the Golden Ending, starting his own gang in Miami.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: His Sociopath perk deck rewards constant aggression, giving him extra armor when he makes a kill, rather than hiding in cover and regenerating it normally. He also regenerates health if it is a kill with a melee attack.
• Ax-Crazy: On par with Wolf. His character trailer has a Cloaker tied up in a room full of corpses while Jacket toys with him before smashing his skull with a hammer.
• Bilingual Bonus: His voice tapes often slip into multiple foreign languages, mostly German, French or Spanish. If you can speak any of these languages you might notice that they have much more specific threats and even cuss a lot of times. Funnily enough, French lines always talk about cigarettes.
• Blood Knight: He really does enjoy the killing, if his perk decks and some of the recordings he uses are any indication.
  "I really enjoyed that."
• The Brute: Jacket's brought aboard for his viciousness and skill at close-quarters combat, and it reflects well in his skills; the Sociopath deck demands a berserker approach with its melee-focused perks, boosting melee damage and granting health regen if the player keeps getting melee kills.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Jacket will often times to invoke this to try to get a message across to the rest of the gang:
  "If you've sustained injuries, you may need to seek medical attention."
  • Similarly, in the safehouse he'll mention facts of things which are often common knowledge (The [NES] was called the Famicom in Japan), or just definitions that the crew obviously know (such as what a firearm is.)
• Close-Range Combatant: Most of the Sociopath perk deck only triggers from kills made at medium range or closer, greatly limiting its effect at long-range.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Keeping with his status as an expy of The Driver, he bears a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.
• Dissonant Serenity: His recordings are oddly calm and soothing considering the context they are being used in.
• The Dreaded: His perk deck bonus Showdown causes enemies to go into short bursts of uncontrollable fear if he kills enemies in close quarters.
  • In the Hotline Miami DLC trailer a Russian mobster keeps calling Wolf an idiot despite being tortured and beaten. When Jacket comes into the room he breaks and starts crying for mercy. Not that it helps...
• Early-Bird Cameo: Assists Wolf in torturing a hostage in the Hotline Miami trailer.
• The Faceless: Completely averted. Jacket's face has never been seen in detail, either in his home game or official artwork, but it can be easily-seen ingame in the safehouse, before masking up, or by simply wearing a "mask" that doesn't cover his face.
• The Ghost: The FBI Files entry for him has Garrett completely perplexed by Jacket, and since nobody from the FBI ever sees his face (only going off of sketches, unlike most of the rest of the gang), they are also unknown of what he looks like. And his voice is a mystery to everyone, even the crew. The only thing the FBI can piece together is him possibly being linked to some murder and robberies down in Florida.
• Guest Fighter: Like Wick, he is a character from another series; in this case Hotline Miami.
• Hero of Another Story: Is the main character of Hotline Miami, but it's unlikely that the story takes place in the same universe as PAYDAY itself.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Never needs to swap out, rewind, or indeed even touch his recorder to get it to play the exact sound he wants.
• Irony: From a meta and gameplay standpoint. The Sociopath perk deck is weak against Snipers. The Hotline Miami DLC map, particularly the second day, has the largest amount of Sniper spawns in the game, making it possibly the worst map in the game for using that perk deck.
• Legacy Character: There are several nods that imply Jacket isn't the same man who we play as through most of Hotline Miami, such as the fact that Hotline Miami is a fictional game in-universe.
• Life Drain: Killing an enemy with a melee attack restores 10% health per second from each hit.
• Nonstandard Character Design: He wears his iconic varsity jacket instead of a two-piece suit and instead of the blue gloves, his hands are wrapped in bandages while still exposing his fingers.
• The Sociopath: He even has a perk deck named as such. Particularly odd, considering he had rare Pet the Dog moments in his home game and was demonstrably not one there. Then again...
• Spared by the Adaptation: He's seen in The End and is well past the window where Hotline Miami 2 happens, making it very likely he survives the entire thing, compared to his fate in 2.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Comes with the medium in how he speaks. Case in point, whereas most heisters respond to bad odors with some variation of "what the hell is that smell?"...
  Jacket: Analysis of the air indicates presence of offensive matter.
• Understatement: Happens often due to how he communicates. Will often say "I'm feeling a bit sick" when in critical condition or "I have made a mistake" when downed.
• Version-Exclusive Content: An interesting case, as Jacket can be used on any console. The exclusivity is instead based on region. To unlock Jacket, one needs to input a code given if they buy Hotline Miami 2 on Steam, but Hotline Miami 2 cannot be bought on the Australian Steam store due to a scene implying sexual assault, meaning Aussie heisters cannot unlock Jacket, the Sociopath Perk Deck, his weapons or the Richard Returns and Richard Begins masks. Overkill attempted to combat this for a few years, giving free codes to anybody who emailed them with proof of their citizenship, but they ceased in 2021, leaving Jacket completely unavailable for Australian heisters.
• The Voiceless: Uses a tape recorder loaded with soundbites from PAs, language-learning tapes and documentary narration in place of actually speaking. This is due to him being a Heroic Mime in Hotline Miami-though in this case, the "heroic" part is being stretched to its limits. Double Subverted in the ending— he finally dumps the recorder into Bain's grave in The End, signalling the end of his heisting days, but the Golden Ending states that he's switched to a fully digital setup instead.
• Weak, but Skilled: His deck used to qualify for this. The Sociopath perk deck revolves around using Melee weapons, which for the longest time were all but unusable due to the damage stats for most melee options being identical to each other in terms of damage stats. And because most melee options were equally useless, Sociopath fell out of use rather quickly. Update 164 changed a perk in the deck to make melee weapons bed-wettingly viable in most armour builds, so long as the melee weapon ^note or empty palm kata... in question can do damage twice in less than a second, which increases the damage of subsequent swings by 1000% ^{Speaking of which...} The Shinsakuto Katana deals the highest damage of any melee weapon and has a 0.5s delay between swings. In the hands of a competent Sociopath, it is a terrifying weapon.

Bonnie (The Gambler)

A kiss from Bonnie for each dead copper!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Voiced By: Rhona Cameron

An old partner of Hoxton's during his days as a Con Man, Bonnie McGee is a gambler at heart - though as it turns out, taking chances isn't the best bet for a criminal, and she recently landed a prison sentence. She did her share of work on the inside, though, using her people skills to dig up information about who ratted out Hoxton. Using this as leverage, she asked her old pal for a spot on the team, and he graciously accepted.

Conceived as a result of the kerfuffle with Clover's voice actor, Bonnie was eventually teased as a reward during the Hype Train event. She was released as a free update on day three of the Spring Break event, bringing with her a new set of weapons and a perk deck, The Gambler.

The Gambler requires taking great risks to collect ammo pickups, with said pickups benefiting yourself the crew. Each ammo pickup regenerates 32-40 points of health for the player, with half that amount also regenerated for the crew, with a four second cooldown. Plus, 50% of the ammo picked up will be distributed to your crew (as if it's been cloned), which has a five second cooldown. If the Gambler's health is lower than another players, they get an additional 20% health for the pick up, which is stackable (meaning if the Gambler's health is lower than all three of their crewmates, that Gambler can receive 60% additional health points to regenerate).

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• Acrofatic: Despite her weight, she retains the same agility as the other heisters.
• Action Girl: Again, goes without saying.
• American Accents: Does a hilariously stereotypical impression of one when answering pagers. The Pager Guy buys it.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Sees herself as this, judging by her dialogue.
• Black Widow: Bonnie had a spree in the past of marrying men, killing them for the insurance money, gambling said money away, and repeating this behaviour.
• Brawn Hilda: Particularly a Scottish one. Complete with ammunition-based healing factor.
• Butter Face: Like with Clover, Bonnie isn't exactly a good-looking gal, though some of that is because of her time in Prison. That said, her resemblance is pretty close to her VA's; Rhona Cameron.
• The Brute: Of the Dumb Muscle variety. She's a Lower-Class Lout whose crimes before joining the gang were murdering spouses for insurance money, barely covering her tracks, and then losing her ill-gotten cash gambling. She gets into the gang not by being recruited for her skill, but by trading a spot in the gang for information on the Rat... which she won gambling inside jail. Gameplay and Story Segregation aside, her skills are "Being 6 foot 3" and that's pretty much it. Then again, she somehow manages to turn her own brew into both a household name and uprooting champagne as the victory drink of choice in the underworld in the Golden Ending...
• Cluster F-Bomb: She has a habit of swearing angrily in her voice lines regardless of circumstance, similar to that of Hoxton and Clover, though given she's meant to be a Violent Glaswegian, this is entirely expected from her.
• Delinquent Hair: Sports a shaved head.
• Expy: Her character design is based on Big Boo from Orange Is the New Black, both serving prison time, as well as having similar haircuts and Acrofatic (but stocky) body builds.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Her pack came with a bottle melee weapon. It's not too spectacular, but it makes up for it with the satisfying glass thwack that it makes upon striking an enemy.
• Glasgow Grin: What her mask implies. Fitting, considering where she's from and what kind of profession she's in.
• Improbable Antidote: Her perk has an ability to heal herself and the crew by using an ammo pickup. It's as insane as it sounds.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Either she's a hardened specialist in armed robbery, or she's a sloppy honeymoon murderer.
• Noodle Incident: Mentioned in one of her lines.
  "The last time I saw so many men coming at me... nevermind, just kill these bastards!"
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Bonnie obtained some clues on who betrayed Hoxton through information gambling while incarcerated, and she used that information as leverage to get Hoxton and the crew to agree in letting her join the gang. Hoxton reluctantly agreed to let Bonnie join the PAYDAY Gang if it meant getting one step closer to the bastard who got him thrown in prison.
• Out of Focus: Bonnie is only relevant story-wise for the time Hoxton is working out who the mole is between Hoxton Breakout and Hoxton Revenge... which is to say, three heists; Hoxton Breakout, Golden Grin Casino, Hoxtons' Revenge. After that point, she is completely superfluous to the story.
• Reformed Criminal: She builds a distillery in the Golden Ending and becomes a highly successful business owner. "Bonnie's Single Malt" becomes a household name, as well as the victory drink of choice in the criminal underworld.
• Sarcastic Confession: Will mention that she saw a gang of heisters as a potential pager line. There's also lines for her trying to hook up with the guy on the other end, showing off her Black Widow characterisation.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Her pack came with the Joceline shotgun that shares most of its stats with the Mosconi, but more accurate and capable of carrying additional ammo when modified, but can't be sawn off for concealment as effectively as the latter.
• Super-Strength: A gag in one of her pager responses mentions how she accidentally hit the radio when she walked into a lamp post and damaged it.
  "I'm fine, but the lamp post is... it's fucked up."
• Support Party Member: Her Gambler Perk deck is based around healing and providing extra ammo for her teammates.
• Tattooed Crook: Bonnie has tattoos running down her neck, rather similar to that of Sydney's arm tattoo's.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Well, drink, anyway. She has a fondness for Rivertown Glen, to the point of wielding an empty bottle of it as a melee weapon and occasionally asking Pager Guy to send her some.
• Violent Glaswegian: She grew up in 1980's Glasgow, and is heavily implied to be a veteran of the infamous "Ice Cream Wars."
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Following Dallas and Dragan, Bonnie decorated parts of her mask with the flag of Scotland.

Sokol (The Grinder)

Come on, clowns!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Alexej Manvelov

Hailing from Russia, Sergei "Sokol" Kozak was a grinder for the STP Bombers, a fictional Russian hockey team. However, this was a front. Between matches, Sokol robbed casinos. Eventually, as the Russian authorities closed in, Sokol realized his time as an independent heister was drawing to an end. Only one man had the skill and resources to hide his identity - Bain. Described as a "gifted athlete", Sokol nonetheless has a keen intelligence, enough to design the BFD used in the Golden Grin heist, which he was released alongside.

The Grinder deck has some similarities to the Rogue. Instead of relying on dodge, the player must rely on health regeneration, where they gain up to 4 health points every third of a second for over four seconds upon damaging an enemy (with a one and a half second cooldown timer) just by damaging an enemy! Also, they benefit further with 40% max health, and a 30% chance to pierce enemy armor. The catch is that this will only work if the Grinder is wearing a two-piece suit or lightweight ballistic vest.

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• All There in the Manual: His backstory is only really mentioned in his trailer, leading some to assume he was recruited completely out of the blue, when in fact he was recruited to help in the Golden Grin Casino Heist. Similarly, his first name; "Sergei", can only be heard as a line in one of the Halloween heists.
• Bilingual Bonus: His introduction in the Golden Grin trailer has him speak entirely in (somewhat awkward) Russian.
• The Engineer: Designed the "Big Fucking Drill" the team uses in the Golden Grin Casino heist.
• Fragile Speedster: The Grinder perk deck only works with the two lightest types of armour in the game, meaning that while a Grinder will move quickly, and can regenerate his health quickly over a firefight, he's very vulnerable to burst damage, like Snipers.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: His bio states that Sokol more or less had no experience in the crime world prior to joining the PAYDAY Gang, he had all the makings for a legendary criminal. His strength, wits, technical skills, and attitude simply made him a natural heister. In the Golden Ending, he establishes a crime organization in Cyprus powerful enough to have direct influence in the local government.
• Jack of All Stats: His grinder perk deck is meant to land itself somewhere in between the heavy armor focused Muscle/Armorer decks and the light armor focused Rogue. It doesn't give as much armor and health bonuses as Muscle/Armorer nor does it increase your dodge like rogue but compensates by giving Regenerating Health.
• Life Drain: His perk deck is essentially leeching life from enemy units, as it requires you to cause damage to activate it.
• The Mafiya: Moves to Cyprus with his family and friends in the Golden Ending, and establishes a powerful crime organization.
• New Meat: The youngest heister prior to the introduction of Sydney and Joy.
• Out of Focus: Sokol was brought into the PAYDAY Gang not because of his proficiency with weapons, but because of another skillset he had; namely that of engineering. He made the BFD; "Big Fucking Drill", to drill into the Golden Grins' vault, and that's it. Asides from the Halloween 2017 heists revealing his first name (Sergei), this is as much as we learn about him.
• Pretty Boy: Young, pretty and has a fairly high-pitched voice, but he's nowhere near effeminate or weak.
• Regenerating Health: His perk deck allows you to keep gaining back lost health as long as you deal damage to enemies.
• Start of Darkness: Interestingly, Sokol's time in the PAYDAY Gang is his start of darkness. He goes on to become an even more infamous criminal after the gang disbands in the Golden Ending.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He frequently expresses the desire to eat bear meat in the Safehouse.

Jiro (The Yakuza)

「マスクを着けたら 情けはあらへん。」^trans No mercy once the mask goes on.

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Togo Igawa

A Japanese-American and former member of the Yakuza with a Dark and Troubled Past. Jiro was abandoned by his parents at a young age and quickly turned to a life of crime. After gaining both wealth and respect from his peers, he fell in love with his boss's daughter Yoshimi. After word spread about their affair, he was betrayed by his boss and Yoshimi was killed. After spending two decades in prison he went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and killed his old boss. Now he has come to America in search of his and Yoshimi's long lost son, whom Bain is said to have information on.

As a Yakuza, they receive the max benefits when in a berserk mode. Like the skills in the fugitive tree, the benefits begin with the player's health at 50% (25% if it has yet to be completed). Depending on where their health is at, a Yakuza can benefit with armor recovery increased up to 60%, and up to 20% movement speed. This complements the berserker and the frenzy skills in the Brawler subtree, which allows additional melee damage at low health, and permanently places the player at low health but with high damage reduction to compensate.

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• A Day In The Lime Light: 2017's Spring Break event focused on Jiro and the gang trying to find his son. While Spring Break 2018 reveals just where he went to.
• All for Nothing: The entire reason why Jiro joins the gang and returns to a criminal life is to find his son. Said son turns out to be working for the very mercenary group Jiro opposes due to the ongoing fighting between the gang and Murkywater, and ends up getting killed by Jiro's own boss. Who then promptly dies after getting the crew their ticket to freedom.
• Betrayal by Offspring: After Jiro see's Kento is in the windowed room in Henry's Rock showing Bain's Cold-Blooded Torture, he will be unable to be spoken to in the Safehouse from then on.
• Bilingual Bonus: Almost all of his dialogue is in Japanese, even his pager lines which the pager guy is still somehow able to understand. Jiro only speaks English (albeit slurred) when talking to at the Safe House though, and he speaks English during certain scenes on The Search for Kento website. Dialogue with him in the Safe House reveals he knew little to no English when he first joined the gang, and got better over time.
• But Not Too Foreign: His father was a US Navy lieutenant.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Like all of his dialogue, Jiro's pager responses are in Japanese yet the pager guy doesn't seem to realize that something's wrong.
• Critical Status Buff: His Yakuza perk deck grants various bonuses at low health.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Has a much more detailed backstory compared to previous heisters exploring his character and motivations.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appeared at the very end of the Ninja Pack trailer, holding up one of the ninja stars, before he was officially announced.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The katana he brought to the game has a unique effect on Cloakers where, if they are killed with it they'll either be cleaved in two at the waist or decapitated.
• Heroic BSoD: After the Henry's Rock heist, with The Reveal that Kento is working for Murkywater, Jiro can no longer be interacted with in the Safe House. It goes without saying that Jiro did not take the revelation well.
• Humiliation Conga: 2018 was not a good year for Jiro. His search for Kento goes nowhere, his boss, Bain, gets captured by a strange group, tortured and injected with a fatal virus. He finally finds Kento... and it turns into a Trauma Conga Line as Kento is a mercenary working for Murkywater, the same people torturing said boss. Then Kento gets killed by Bain when they go to save him. And then Bain dies, dissolving the team and putting him right back where he started. Jiro basically lost everything he came to America to find.
• Japanese Delinquents: He was member of a Bōsōzoku gang before joining the Yakuza.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Unsurprisingly, his standard melee weapon, and at whopping 450 (900 with Pumping Iron), it has the highest charged damage of any melee weapon in the game making it especially great for Sociopath builds, and for general use (unless something with more knockback is required). The addition of OVERDOG^note increases melee attack strength with consecutive swipes, provided the weapon can attack once every 0.5 seconds into Sociopath and Infiltrator turns the blade into an instrument of death, able to cleave armies in twain.
• Kick the Dog: After years of searching for his son, he finally finds him... working for the PMC that he actively opposes, having captured and possibly tortured the man he calls his boss. Said boss kills his son after he escapes from his prison cell.
• Not So Above It All: In his introductory trailer (and parts of The Search for Kento), Jiro is close to being The Stoic, going over his backstory in a very dark, brooding and sombre manner. In the game, his pager responses can be very juvenile, and he always sounds loud and excited, even becoming a Screaming Warrior while using his katana. The latter can possibly be justified due to adrenaline (he is in the middle of a gunfight, after all), the former not so much.
• Odd Friendship: According to the game's epilogue, he had formed one with Sangres at some point.
• Off with His Head!: His katana has a unique killing move on Cloakers that will either behead or bisect them.
• Parental Abandonment: His father left him after the US fleet was relocated, and his mother followed soon after.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The entire reason for his coming to America.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Jiro returned to Japan in the Golden Ending to avenge his wife and son, by wiping out his old gang once and for all.
• Tattooed Crook: Though most of his Irezumi is hidden under the suit, you can see some of it from the open chest area in his suit and partly under his sleeves while playing as him.
• Walking the Earth: In the Golden Ending, he does this after settling his scores with the Yakuza, in search of enlightenment.
• Yakuza: A former member of it and the name of his perk deck.
• Your Mom: When answering a pager, he may say (in Japanese) something to the effect of "I just saw a sumo wrestler. Didn't realise it was your mother!"

Bodhi (The Ex-President)

We will not be controlled!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Josh Lenn (voice)

Bodhi is known as one of the greatest legends in world of crime, but few know the man behind the mask. As the founding father of the Ex-Presidents gang, Bodhi's renowned in the criminal underworld for his extreme athleticism and daring heists. His recent feats of strength in Mumbai and Austria got Bain’s attention, granting him an invitation to the PAYDAY Gang.

With the Ex-President deck, you gain a spare life meter that matches about 50% of your total life, depending on the armor worn. The suit gives you the most of the meter, while the ICTV takes away a lot of it. In any case, each kill you or a crewmate makes contribute 12 health points to this health bar. When your armor breaks and subsequently recovers, all of that life is used to restore your health, regardless if you have more than needed (or if you haven't lost a life) or not. Also, they benefit from 40% more max health, 10% dodge, and a faster armor recovery speed for each kill prior to the armor recovering, which then resets. The bigger the armor, the less recovery it gains. Many had attributed to this as the more defensive version of the Grinder. Also helps that unlike the Grinder, this perk deck was given for free.

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• Composite Character: While his character design loosely resembles Édgar Ramírez (who portrayed him in the 2015 remake), his personality has more in common with the late Patrick Swayze's portrayal of Bodhi in the original Point Break. This is likely because Bodhi was established to be part of the PAYDAY canon long before the remake was in production.
• The Dreaded: Bodhi had his own FBI files trailer, with Commissioner Garrett presenting (presumably to other officers) just how dangerous this man is.
• Granola Guy: In the Safehouse, he often talks about "becoming one with the waves", complains that the gang should be targeting corporations who "pollute Mother Earth", and warns that the improved Safehouse is just "material bullshit". Not surprisingly, he has some of the least possessions in the safehouse.
• Guest Fighter: Just like John Wick, Bodhi was released for free to the game at the same time as the remake of Point Break (1991). Unlike Wick, however, Bodhi was hinted to exist as a character within the PAYDAY Universe since the first game, thanks to Shout-Outs to the original film (such as the gang going under "Bodhi's Pool Repair" as a cover for the Counterfeit job, which amusingly would be added back into PAYDAY 2).
• Heart Container: His Ex-Presidents perk deck comes with an extra health bar that fills every time an enemy is killed. When he takes health damage, this second health bar is expended to heal him.
• In Harm's Way: Bodhi is an adrenaline junkie. In the Golden Ending, he spends some time in a coma after performing the world's highest skydive, but starts building a car to break the land-speed record when he recovers.
• Jack of All Stats: The Ex-Presidents perk deck strikes a middle ground between light and heavy armour, as it provides extra armour recovery (good for heavier armour), but has a longer secondary health bar depending on how light the user's armour is (providing nearly double effective health if using a suit)
• Parts Unknown: His nationality and age are both listed as unknown. This might be because he resembles the remake's version of Bodhi, but the Bodhi in the game's lore was from the original.
• Surfer Dude: His mannerisms are based on this. His room in the Safehouse is a workshop where he makes surfboards, too.
• Tattooed Crook: Bodhi's arms are COVERED in tattoos, supposedly representing his completion of the "Ozaki 8".
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Bodhi is very, VERY fond of this trope, especially in his "Special Unit Down" dialogue.
• Your Head Asplode: Bodhi really dislikes Tasers. Somehow, this causes his headshots on them while using a sniper rifle to leaving nothing left of their face but a giant, bloody hole.

Jimmy (The Maniac)

Woohoo! This is fucking war, baby! Yeah!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Sharlto Copley

While it isn't explained in depth how exactly he came across the PAYDAY Gang, Jimmy is a guy without limits. There's nothing he won't do and it seems every new challenge truly excites him. He has shown nothing but loyalty towards Crime.Net and the gang, making him a valuable asset to have onboard. Also the only playable heister who is also a contractor.

The Maniac is all about being both aggressive and protective. Any damage dealt is converted into Hysteria stacks, up to 240 every 4 seconds, with the maximum amount being 600. The Maniac benefits with 2 points of damage absorption for every 25 stacks. However, 60% of that plus 40 more can decay every 8 seconds. Also, the whole crew gets half the benefit of this. While it isn't stackable, the one with the highest stacks will be the one able to distribute it passively among their allies (at least for those who don't have the Maniac perk deck equipped). Basically, as long as you keep attacking, you will get an additional shield for yourself and the whole team.

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• Addiction-Powered: Masking up usually comes with a distinct nasal sniff, and the guy is implied to do enough cocaine to give Doctor Rockso, the rock 'n' roll clown, a run for his money: his suit has dusty white handprints, his face is powdered with it, and one of his wrists even has a lovingly-rendered smear of nose-blood. His personal Safehouse missions involve either stealing ten bags of the stuff, or making twenty bags of crystal meth for him to try out, and if upgraded his bar eventually gains several bags' worth of coke sitting off to one side.
• Affably Evil: Jimmy is a rather fun and likable fellow, all things considered.
• Amoral Afrikaner: An Affably Evil example, but he's still an Ax-Crazy career criminal with a six-foot-thick Boer accent.
• Ax-Crazy: Very much portrayed this way. His perk deck is even called "Maniac".
• The Berserker: The more reckless Jimmy is, the better shielding his teammates receive.
• Blood Knight: Some of his lines get this across.
• Bond One-Liner: Whenever Jimmy kills a Taser, he has a chance of delivering this:
  "Well, this is electric./That's fuckin' electric!"
• Doomed by Canon: The coke-addicted Jimmy clone - the version playable in-game - is killed halfway through Hardcore Henry, while the original Jimmy dies near the end of the film.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Maybe. He still appears in the intro cutscenes for some of the heists, and The End shows him at the funeral, dumping his mask into Bain's grave. Considering this means he wouldn't have it for the little cameo in Hardcore Henry, it is clear PAYDAY's timeline deviates just enough for him to potentially live. He is still alive in the Golden Ending, too.
• Dual Wield: He comes with two knives at once!
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Naturally. Spoiler for Hardcore Henry ahead. Jimmy prepares two of himself for working with the PAYDAY Gang. The suave, James Bond-like superspy is intimidatingly good at what he does, but he makes the mistake of underestimating their loyalty to each other and ends up having to off himself to make amends, leaving the coked-up maniac version to step in as a less-threatening but more emotionally-invested backup.
• Guest Fighter: Just like Wick, Jacket, and Bodhi before him. Interesting to note that unlike Wick and Bodhi, Jimmy is played by the same actor, Sharlto Copley, where as the others are played by impersonators.
• Guns Akimbo: His release coincided with allowing players to do this with submachine guns now - both the existing Compact-5 and Krinkov, and Jimmy's new Heather SMG can be used two at once.
• Heart Container: Or rather, Armor Container. Much like Ex-President's secondary healthbar, the Maniac perkdeck provides every crew member with an extra bar of armor that fills whenever the Maniac scores a kill.
• The "I Love You" Stigma: Averted. Despite being a literal maniac, he seems to feel genuine, enthusiastic affection for the gang. In the Hardcore Henry trailer, he cheerfully pays them extra, one of his revival lines is a grateful, "I love you, thank you," and his perk deck is geared toward protecting his teammates.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One of his inspire lines pokes fun at the skill in question.
  Jimmy: Resi-fuckin-rected!
• Too Dumb to Live: One of him, anyway. While it is badass for Jimmy to capture three of the PAYDAY Gang at once, it is also a very bad idea. Messing with any one of them on a personal level is guaranteed to piss off all the others, but messing with three of them and giving back their guns might as well be the definition of this trope.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cocaine. Maybe most people wouldn't consider it a food, but he eats it in the trailer.
• Unskilled, but Strong: In canon, it's stated that while he isn't all that bright, his insanity and raw charisma make up for his lack of planning and strategy.

Sydney (The Anarchist)

This is how legends are created!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Georgia Van Cuylenburg

A heister first announced during PAYDAYCON 2015; Kelli "Sydney" King is of Australian descent, and apparently stole from the PAYDAY Gang mid-heist, making off with a single bag of money in a flurry of explosives and bullets. Impressed with the kid's bravado, Bain offered her an official invitation into the crew, which she accepted without hesitation.

With the Anarchist deck, half of the user's max health is sacrificed in favor of 120% more armor. Armor recovery works differently as it now continuously regenerates in intervals instead of recovering instantly. The heavier the armor, the longer the intervals. However, 10 points of armor can be regenerated when dealing damage every one and a half seconds. Like the Armorer, the Anarchist also has a two second invincibility period upon armor depletion with a 15 second cooldown.

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• Action Girl: As with Clover and Bonnie, this goes without saying.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Her Perk Deck encourages this, as her armor regenerates constantly and when you deal damage rather than after taking cover.
• Attention Whore: Her backstory involves her interrupting a PAYDAY heist by herself in a bid for attention. Seeing as how she's now a part of the crew, it's safe to say that it worked.
• Awesome Aussie: She is the first Australian heister.
• Ax-Crazy: Her FBI profile described her as "not a sane person". As a teenager, she got her kicks out of causing havoc and beating people up For the Evulz. She's much more mellow in the Safe House, however.
• Badass Adorable: Seen as the most conventionally attractive of the female heisters, but that doesn't stop her from kicking ass.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Played interestingly, in that one of her Perk Deck's effects is literally converting health into more armor.
• The Bogan: Residential Australian heister, and also one of the most crass and foul-mouthed of the crew.
• Delinquent Hair: Sports a punk mohawk, flattened to fit under her mask.
• Dominatrix: Some of her voice lines give off this vibe, especially her lines when controlling civvies.
  Sydney: Stay down, little doggy...
• For the Evulz: Her backstory implies that she has no real reason for what she's doing, she just likes to cause havoc.
• Is This Thing On?: A couple of her pager responses have her sing either 'Land Down Under', 'Never Gonna Give You Up' or 'U Can't Touch This' and pretend she knocked the pager by accident.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Anarchist perk deck drastically increases the armor points in exchange of less health. Which gives the Two-Piece Suit about 220 points rather than the usual 20. While using the ICTV with the said perk deck will grant some colossal 400 ARMOR POINTS! That's enough to make Death Sentence look like a joke (If used carefully and with right skills such as Bullseye). In fact, it's usually seen as one of two metas that even work on any difficulty above Mayhem (the other being a finger-cross Dodge build).
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Anarchist Perk Deck plays by a completely different set of rules in terms of armour regeneration compared to the other Perk Decks. Instead of fully regenerating after a few seconds without being injured, the Anarchist recovers armour in much smaller bursts, but more frequently, and with a timer that's independent of whether they've taken fire recently.
• New Meat: Is the second youngest member of the crew at 24, only later beaten by Joy (22).
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, she completely leaves her life of crime behind her, uses most of her fortune to support the fight against child cancer, and spends her days travelling the world and volunteering at wildlife rescue centers.
• Refuge in Audacity: Just walked up to the crew mid-heist, started shooting at the cops with them, and then walked off with one of their loot bags. They weren't even mad, just impressed.
• Sarcastic Confession: One of her pager responses has her claiming that she thought she saw a group of clowns in masks running by.
• Shout-Out: All the perks in her deck are named after punk rock songs.
• Tattooed Crook: Has tattoos all over both arms.

Rust (The Biker)

Fuckin' mindless puppets! You deserve nothing, but death!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: Ron Perlman

Tom "Rust" Bishop is a senior biker who was with the Overkill MC gang; the one that the Elephant hires from time to time to carry out black operations. Bain was in need of an inside man, and Rust was his choice. With the help of the Elephant, Rust was recruited with the promise of amassing a fortune. He quickly accepted, and proved his loyalty by killing off some of his fellow biker brothers, even going so far to have his gang's tattoo removed. He was also in possession of knowledge of an augmented reality helmet that can control attack drones, but would only surrender that information if the gang rescued a friend of his, and his signature ride.

The Biker deck is all about cooperating with others as everyone stays aggressive enough to keep the Biker alive. Similar to the Ex-President, but behaving like a Grinder, every kill that the Biker and their crew makes rewards that Biker with 5 health and armor points regained, with an extra point for every 10% of the health or armor meters drained. The healing effect works up to 10 times with a 15 second cooldown. Said cooldown can be reduced by one second for every 10% of the health or armor meters drained.

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• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Low health and depleted armor? That's exactly when you should be the most aggressive. The lower your health and armor, the faster you regenerate from kills.
• Badass Biker: Naturally, considering what he did before joining the crew.
• Chain Pain: His melee weapon is a metal chain.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Probably the most foul mouthed member of the crew, with every other line of his containing a 4-letter word (or the phrase "punk-ass", most notably when dealing with shields).
• Critical Status Buff: His perk deck lets him regenerate health at low armor as well as the other way around.
• Expy: Of Clay from Sons of Anarchy, both are senior members of a biker gang played by Ron Perlman, both are also largely motivated by personal greed in their actions and eventually manage to earn the hatred of their own gang, but whereas this ended very badly for Clay, Rust successfully managed to betray his gang and even profits from it significantly.
• Greed: Much like Clay, Rust's actions are largely motivated by his greed. The bikers are heard complaining about how greedy he always was and ultimately betrayed them when it became clear that he could profit from it. However he does at least have the decency to have the PAYDAY Gang save his friend from his old gang, even if it means going through a lot of hassle.
• Ink-Suit Actor: He is modeled after his actor Ron Perlman.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He uses the lever-action Breaker 12G Shotgun that he can flip-cock. Next to the Judge revolver-shotgun, it is the highest-damaging shotgun in the entire game, even edging out the Mosconi, Joceline, and Claire.
• Team Spirit: The Biker heals no matter who gets the kill, meaning that relying on teammates when low rather than going on a desperado rampage is just as effective. An entire team of Bikers works together to allow whoever has the highest remaining health and armor shoulder the burden of the team and heal them, who in turn aid him when he's low.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: He is very fond of this. This is mostly noticeable in his kill lines.
• Turncoat: He used to roll with the Overkill MC gang, but he easily turned against them when the Elephant offered him a lucrative deal by offering him money plus extra he would make stealing some new technology for Bain. When one of his now former friends questions his betrayal, Rust doesn't seem too fazed by it. Rust turned for the money.
  Biker: Rust, I thought we were brothers. (reveals a tattoo of his gang on his shoulder)
  Rust: Yeah, about that... (reveals that he's had his tattoo removed, then kills him)
• Walking the Earth: In the Golden Ending, he rebuilds his bike, takes a large bag of cash as payment for his time with the gang, and drives off into the wasteland, never to be seen again.

Scarface (The Kingpin)

You wanna play rough, huh?!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed By: André Sogliuzzo

A heister announced in December 2016 in conjunction with Universal Studios. Infamous Miami drug lord Scarface (Tony Montana. Yes, that Tony Montana)^note Well...maybe not... joins the PAYDAY Gang seeking money, power, and respect. And he'll do whatever it takes to obtain the American Dream.

The Kingpin has access to the Kingpin Injector, which replaces the throwable slot, but is reusable every thirty seconds. The Injector starts a rather unique regenerating effect where the user can draw attention from nearby enemies, and converts 75% of the damage taken into health points (provided you still have armor, otherwise it just reduces damage taken, but as a heal what is done). If the user gains health points beyond their max while under the influence, it will reduce the cooldown timer instead. Killing enemies will also reduce the cooldown by 1 second, and the user also gets 80% more max health.

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• Achilles' Heel: Much like the Sociopath perk deck, the Kingpin perk deck is vulnerable to burst damage, as the mechanics behind its Healing Factor apply the healing before taking damage. While normally of little issue, on higher difficulties, a Kingpin still stands the risk of being one-shot out of his rampage by shotgun-wielding Bulldozers that remove all his health in one go.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the film, Tony is defined by his Never Hurt an Innocent morality and much of the film's drama is caused by his refusal to hurt innocent people. Here, he has no such morals holding him back, much like every other crossover heister with similar morals, and has nothing against gunning down civilians during heists if the need arises, or even if the player just wants to be cruel.
• Addiction-Powered: While not to the same extent as Jimmy, as his personal Safehouse room is upgraded he'll eventually have a small mountain of cocaine piled on his desk. It is also implied that the adrenaline injector that comes with his perk deck contains cocaine as part of the cocktail of chemicals it holds.
• Alternate Continuity: Played with. The FBI files state that he was assassinated by the Sosa cartel in the 1980's as per the film, so it is not clear just how he's alive here. It is ambiguous if he managed to escape and fake his death (similarly to Scarface: The World Is Yours), is a Dead Guy Junior, or an imposter. The fact that his "Little Friend" is a modern-day HK417 instead of the classic M16A1 he used in the film, and that he hasn't appeared to have aged in thirty years seem to imply either of the latter two.
  • This would eventually be cleared up by OVERKILL in a stream; the events of the film are still canon and the "Tony" seen in-game is not the same one as Montana. Additionally, the events of Scarface: The World Is Yours are considered not canon.
• Book Dumb: Talking to him in the safehouse has him admit that he never was able to get an education and he doesn't even know whether or not England is a country, a state, or even a city.
• Chainsaw Good: He comes with a chainsaw as a melee weapon, in reference to the film's infamous usage of one. Ironically, in-game it's more a "Chainsaw Not-So-Good", owing to its slow swing speed (it's infamously as strong as a pistol whip), which means it cannot be directly buffed from the OVERDOG perk in the Sociopath Perk deck, a perk deck focusing on melee weapons.
• Discard and Draw: The Kingpin is a rarity among perk decks in that making the most of it requires giving up the throwable slot. In return, the Kingpin becomes a nightmarish tank, capable of shrugging off bullets like dandruff for six seconds at a time while giving nearby teammates a breather.
• Draw Aggro: Later levels in the Kingpin perk deck causes the Kingpin to draw fire while under the influence of the injector.
• Exact Words: The Kingpin heals 75% of all damage taken as health while his injector is active, not prevents it. This means that damage that would normally bring him down 'will still do so, regardless of the healing ability. Likewise, this means that the healing does not decrease armour damage, but will also heal his health instead.
• First-Name Basis: Although his codename is Scarface, other heisters use his actual name, Tony, when calling to him.
• Guest Fighter: As with Wick, Jacket, Bodhi, and Jimmy before him. While he is not voiced by or modeled after Al Pacino, he is voiced by André Sogliuzzo, who was hand-picked by Pacino to voice the character in Scarface: The World Is Yours.
• Healing Factor: While under the effect of the injector, the Kingpin recovers 75% of all damage he takes as health. This includes armour damage, allowing a heavily-armoured Kingpin to recover health by taking fire so long as his armour holds.
• Implacable Man: His perk deck is all about this. The Kingpin deck replaces whatever throwable item you have with an adrenaline injector that, when used, heals you for 75% of all damage taken while it is active. Further upgrades increase base health, damage healed while using the injector, and will draw all fire from enemies while under the injector's effects.
• Legacy Character: Like Jacket, Scarface is implied to not be the original holder of his persona, also sharing the fact that they are both canonically dead. Unlike Jacket, it's been stated fully by Word of God that the PAYDAY Gang's Scarface isn't the original Scarface, and that The World Is Yours is not canon to the PAYDAY universe.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Kingpin is the first Perk Deck to require sacrificing an additional equipment slot to properly use.
• More Dakka: Averted. The "Little Friend" assault rifle might be one of the highest-damaging assault rifle in addition to the underbarrel grenade launcher, but it can only carry roughly one more additional magazine with a rather poor ammo pickup rate (at least for the rifle, as the integrated grenade launcher has better ammo pickup rate compared to other grenade launchers), and without constantly picking up ammo, pairing with a balanced or large ammo sidearm, or playing the cards right on the perks, one would get better use from setting it to semi-auto - in fact, alongside the M308, it is one of only two assault rifles in the game with selective-fire capabilities that starts on semi-auto.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The assault rifle in his DLC pack is called the "Little Friend", based on his Pre-Mortem One-Liner in the film's finale - even including the underbarrel Grenade Launcher he opened the fight with, and being a derivative (and even using the stock) of the same gun he used in that fight. Several of his perk deck skills also reference his lines from the film.
  • His mask's color scheme is directly based on the film's poster◊.
  • The Kingpin's ability to survive large-scale firefights with weaker foes while having an Achilles' Heel to high bursts of damage references the final gunfight in the movie, where Tony wipes out a large force of Mooks while surviving several hits from automatic weapons before being instantly killed by a shotgun-touting enemy.
  • His voice actor is the same as his portrayal in the 2006 videogame The World is Yours, however as noted on the Alternate Continuity above, the events of the movie are canon and in fact, unlike the game where he bought back the mansion early in the game before starting to retake businesses around Miami, the central heist in the Scarface DLC is about storming his former mansion to kill Sosa and raid it for loot.
• Shrouded in Myth: The Golden Ending states that he went missing while hunting alligators and hasn't been seen since. Rumors swirl over his whereabouts, with one having him take a new identity as "The Colonel" in a lost warrior tribe.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: In keeping with his film personality, he liberally peppers his speech with cursing and insults.
• Temporary Online Content: Unfortunately, as of October 1, 2020, Scarface and his character pack are no longer purchasable due to licensing isues. However, players who owned his DLC prior can still play as him.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In-game trivia states that Tony doesn't like cockroaches.
• You Have Researched Breathing: The Kingpin Injector, a simple syringe, can only be used with the Kingpin perk deck.

Sangres (The Sicario)

Whoo, I love the fireworks! But where are the mariachis?!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed by: Joseph Balderrama

A former hitman from Mexico, added to the lineup in May 2017 to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Having defected from The Cartel, Antonio Benitez Rodriguez, AKA Sangres found himself travelling to the US seeking bigger things. Gage introduced him to the PAYDAY Gang, and he's proven himself a reliable asset.

The Sicario has a more unique take on dodge builds. They have a smoke grenade that takes up the throwable slot but is reusable every minute, with the cooldown reduced by 1 second for every enemy killed. They receive 15% dodge, plus an additional 20% when they get hit, which resets after a successful dodge, but also has a four second cooldown. Dodging also helps replenish armor. When the smoke grenade is used, the Sicario gets an extra two points of dodge, while everyone else gets 10%. Any gun fire through the smoke screen has only a 50% chance of hitting anyone and reduces enemy accuracy by half.

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• Achilles' Heel: Burst damage hurts a Sicario if it happens to actually hit them. With no built-in healing ability or durability boosts, a single particularly strong hit can seriously injure a Sicario if their luck runs out, especially with light armour. They also suffer against being Tased or Cloaked, as neither ability is affected by the Smoke Grenade (though other cops will still have trouble shooting a Tased Sicario).
• Bald of Evil: He is a Mexican criminal, after all.
• Bilingual Bonus: Much like other foreign heisters, he peppers his dialogue with his native tongue. Also, his revolver is known as the Castigo; Spanish for "punishment".
• Book Ends: Came to America from Mexico, hoping to find better work with the crew, and ends the story back in Mexico, the crew dissolved and the work dried up. Notably, he's the first to throw his mask into the grave.
• Discard and Draw: Much like Kingpin, a Sicario has to give up their throwable slot to make the most of their Perk Deck. In return, they have the ability to drastically decrease enemy accuracy and/or give any squadmate a chance to completely avoid damage.
• Jack of All Stats: Like the Ex-President Perk Deck, the Sicario complements both light and heavy armour. Lightly armoured Sicarios have a much better chance of completely avoiding damage, especially when a Smoke Grenade is in play, whereas heavily armoured users have a chance for their armour to completely instantly regenerate when shot at, letting them soak up large amounts of extra damage in a pinch.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted; unlike other heisters who always wear the same clothes, Sangres changes his shirt every time you play as him, and they are all amusingly tacky. You can even see them on a rack in his room in the Safehouse.
• Machete Mayhem: His melee weapon of choice.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Like Kingpin before it, the Sicario Perk Deck requires sacrificing an additional equipment slot to properly use. And rather than healing damage or giving him more defense, as most perk decks do, his plays more like a pseudo-Dodge build, avoiding damage altogether.
• Random Number God: Whether his Smoke Bomb's evasion boosts/accuracy decreases will block any given bullet is a roll of the dice. Still present, but much less so, if fully upgraded (as the odds improve on a failed dodge to the point of being a sure thing if on a particularly bad run of luck).
• Revolvers Are Just Better: He brings a new revolver with him that can even be dual-wielded.
• Smoke Out: His Perk Deck allows him to drop a Smoke Grenade of his own.
• Support Party Member: The Sicario's role is often to drop a smoke bomb to protect his squad at crucial moments, reducing enemy accuracy by half (if they are trapped in the smoke) or giving teammates a 50% chance to avoid damage.
• Yakuza: In the Golden Ending, Sangres helps Jiro get revenge against his former Yakuza, but decides to stay afterwards, eventually becoming one of the few outsiders to become a Yakuza boss.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Much like Kingpin before it, the Sicario Perk Deck has an exclusive throwable.

Duke (The Stoic)

This is invigorating!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Portrayed by: Nicholas Colicos

The fan-made winner of the #MyHeister contest, created during the Search for Kento event, Duke was added on Day 8 of the Locke and Load event in October 2017.

August "Duke" Lindenhurst is an art thief and a man of refined tastes, coming from a wealthy background, but still seeks thrills, cash, and excitement. Having trained with Buddhist monks, Duke has achieved a state of perfect calm, something he uses in his line of work to produce results.

The arrest of the Elephant led to the discovery of a letter from August Lindenhurst to a "Desmond," dated 1905. This letter is from one of his ancestors (who he took his former alias from), who died on the ill-fated Shacklethorne expedition - and said ancestry helps link him to Baldwin's Lament, a device integral to Bain's final plan.

The Stoic is all about balancing damage and health. Instead of taking damage in one burst, the Stoic receives damage over time, so that they can spend more time killing. Plus, by sacrificing their throwable slot, the Stoic can negate any remaining damage (and when fully upgraded, can even heal some extra back).

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• Achilles' Heel: The Stoic Perk Deck has the exact opposite weakness as the Sociopath, Kingpin, and Sicario, as while it is fantastic at absorbing burst damage (as, with their massive Health pool, a Stoic can neutralize 75% of a burst damage at the push of a button so long as the Flask is not on its very short cooldown), the Stoic's unique rules on taking damage (in that it only delays damage instead of negating it when the Flask is on cooldown) and the nature of the Flask's effect (unlike the Kingpin Syringe and Sicario Smoke Grenade, it instantly works instead of having the effect linger for several seconds) means that the Stoic struggles when they are locked in direct combat against hordes of enemies. They also have an unfortunate tendency to get stuck in a deadly Cycle of Hurting if they're downed in the middle of a firefight, as being revived only restores a small percentage of health, and without Armour to give them a moment to find shelter, they're prone to taking enough damage to knock them right back down.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Played as literally as possible in a game that already plays this perfectly straight - the Un-moved tier of his Perk Deck converts all of your armor into extra health. The heavier the armor, the more health you get.
• Breakout Character: Like Locke, Duke began to get more integrated into the heists and general plotline as the game has gone on. Moreso than Locke actually, as he turns out to be directly related to the item Bain was looking for. Not bad for the winner of a fan contest.
• Cultured Badass: You don't get to be an art thief without being cultured. And you don't get to join the PAYDAY Gang without being a badass.
• Discard and Draw: Like the previous two heisters, the Stoic cannot use grenades. However, using the hip flask will neutralize any damage waiting to be dealt.
• Happily Married: It's mentioned in the Golden Ending that he has a wife.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Later tiers in the Stoic Perk Deck allow the Stoic to negate all remaining Damage Over Time without the use of the Flask if they can avoid taking any other damage for at least 4 seconds.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: A downplayed example, given that Duke is a heister, but he's definitely one of the most well-tempered members of the PAYDAY Gang. In the Golden Ending, it's noted that he now lives with several cats.
• Large Ham: In a different way to the others. He is not so much loud as much as he overacts near everything he says.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Has a greater deal of class than the other heisters, with a more dignified personality and dialogue. He even wears a bowtie, as opposed to most of the other heisters, who wear normal neckties. His place in the Safehouse is festooned with art, and his mask is based off of Michelangelo's statue of David.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: In addition to being the only Perk Deck to have no armour whatsoever (after the third tier, the armour is instead transferred to raw health), Stoics have a different set of rules in how they take damage compared to the other Perk Decks. Rather than taking all of the damage at once, or nullifying a percentage of it, Stoics only take 25% damage directly. The other 75% is done as damage-over-time over the course of the next 16 seconds. Unless the Flask is used to negate the DOT effect or (at higher tiers) the Stoic avoids taking any other damage for at least 4 seconds in a row, the Stoic will eventually suffer the full effect of any damage taken.
• Mythology Gag: If you bring him along for the No Mercy flashback heist, he'll pipe up during the intro about the fact that he didn't even exist when it originally took place.
  Why does it feel like I shouldn't be here right now?
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, he uses the various historical artifacts the gang had stolen to open a museum in New York.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Downplayed. Just like John Wick, he does not swear in his dialogue, and only uses "damn" and "hell" in some of his lines.
• The Stoic: It is also the name of his Perk Deck.
• Tap on the Head: His melee weapon is a simple Leather Sap. Unlike most examples of the trope, it is always a lethal weapon, since PAYDAY 2 lacks the ability to knock out enemies without killing them.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Downplayed. While the Stoic Perk Deck's main focus is taking a swig of whiskey to avoid damage, Duke's backstory does mention training with Buddhist monks to achieve perfect calm, and the drinking is a personal ritual to compose himself. How exactly one can shrug off bullets that way is another matter.

Ethan & Hila (The Tag Team)

Portrayed By: Ethan Klein and Hila Hakmon

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They'd better fear Hila!

A husband and wife team, and Internet celebrities, Ethan and Hila Klein ran into financial trouble when some of their documentary work drew the ire of numerous individuals. Forced to spend a small fortune on legal fees, their difficulties caught the attention of Bain, who offered them a place into the crew to help boost their reputation, with the promise of fame, fortune and glory. But rumors have circulated that altruism is not the real reason for their induction. With Hila's supposed military background, people have theories about the duo's true reasons for being there. But the only one who really knows is Bain, and he's not telling anytime soon.

In a first for PAYDAY 2, Ethan and Hila share a Perk Deck, known as the Tag Team. By looking at a fellow heister within ten meters, they create a symbiotic link between themselves and an ally. During this, the Tag Team provides themselves and their selected ally with a health boost for every enemy either heister kills. Additionally, higher perk abilities can grant damage absorption, and reduce the cooldown of the ability.

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• Acrofatic: Ethan. He barely fits into his suit, something even Bonnie is able to do, but that doesn't stop him from running as fast (and Dodging as well) as the rest of the crew, if you have the right skills and Perk Deck.
• April Fools' Day: They were originally announced as an April Fools prank, only to actually be put in the game.
• As Himself: They are played by the real Ethan and Hila Klein.
• Automatic Crossbow: Their DLC introduces the Airbow as the weapon. It can fire six times before needing a reload, reloads faster than the manual crossbows, and has much clearer sights along with the option of sight attachments, but in turn it carries less ammo overall than any of the other bows, deals the least amount of damage among them (albeit by a slim margin, being only 50 damage lower than the Light Crossbow), and has poor concealment even with its unique stock.
• Discard and Draw: Like every other Perk Deck introduced since the Kingpin, the Tag Team forego grenades to utilize their own ability. This being h3h3, their item is a vape.
• Fighting Clown: Despite being a duo of internet streamers, they're frighteningly competent heisters, coming with a strong Airbow, a fairly decent melee weapon and a decent Perk Deck.
• Improbable Weapon User: Their melee weapon is a giant metal ruler. Said ruler also has identical stats to Jiro's katana.
• Justified Criminal: Their in-game backstory states that they were forced into crime due to legal fees, a reference to the Klein's legal battles with Matt "Bold Guy" Hoss.
• Mysterious Past: Hila has been rumored to have been in the Israeli military, but she publicly denies it. The real Hila did serve in the IDF for two years as part of a mandatory draft, but was probably not special forces as implied in this game.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted, as they play themselves in the game.
• Outlaw Couple: They are a married couple, which is represented by them sharing a Perk Deck focused around buffing an ally.
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, they both decide that a life of crime isn't for them, and return to their day jobs as online broadcasters.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Rather obviously absent from Bain's funeral, though the Golden Ending reveals that they bailed, presumably when Bain reveals his plan of performing a heist on the White House itself.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Much like Sicario, a simple vape comes exclusively with the Tag Team perk deck.

Joy (The Hacker)

Portrayed By: Siu-See Hung

Come on! Fight for your payday!

^{Click to see them unmasked} 

Joy is a Japanese hacker, Locke's new protegé, and is an expert in the field, and Locke has brought her into the gang to bolster it up in all things related to hacking and cyber-security. Her first assignment by Locke was scrubbing bogus invites electronically to appear legitimate, something which is a cakewalk for her compared to what she's normally up to. With the fight against the Kataru heating up, Joy will be increasingly important to protect Crime.net from interlopers. She was released as a timed-exclusive character for the Nintendo Switch version of PAYDAY 2, and was released on PC in August 13th 2018 as day 1 of the Icebreaker Event. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 got Joy and her associated perk deck / weapons on the 17th May 2019 update.

The Hacker focuses around the use of ECM Jammers, and can sacrifice their throwable slot for an additional one. The Pocket ECM Device functions similarly to the standard Jammer, except that it recharges over time (even in stealth) and can carry up to two charges, but only lasts for six seconds at a time. Like the standard Jammer, the Pocket ECM Device can block phone signals and temporarily disable cameras in stealth, and stun enemies with the ECM Feedback Loop during firefights.

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: Chronologically-speaking, Joy is the final heister to join the PAYDAY Gang before the gang's official disbandment. She joins the crew before the Shacklethorne Auction job, just three missions (canonically two, since No Mercy is a flashback) before the Grand Finale. Averted in Payday 3, where she's one of the returning heisters alongside the original four.
• Boyish Short Hair: Sports this underneath the mask, in contrast to Clover's medium-length locks and Bonnie and Sydney's Delinquent Hair. Averted in 3, as she had let her hair grow in-between games.
• Brown Note: In Loud, The Hacker perk decks' Pocket ECM Jammer causes all police, SWAT and even Special Units to cover their ears in pain for 8 seconds, presumably due to the feedback of the ECM Jammer being connected to the same wavelength the Police use.
• Child of Two Worlds: Despite having been born in Japan, she never actually got to live there; her Safehouse lines reveal she was raised her entire life in America, which explains why she speaks perfect English versus Jiro.
• The Cracker: She is a criminal hacker by background. Now that she's packing heat, she's gone from cracking code to cracking skulls.
• Discard and Draw: Like every other Perk Deck introduced since the Kingpin, the Hacker foregoes grenades to utilize their own ability. Joy can bring a Pocket ECM Device.
• Expressive Mask: Joy's mask is by far the most advanced, being an LED digital mask that changes colors and expressions depending on what's going on.
• Foil: Joy serves as this to the only other Japanese heister, Jiro. Aside from nationality, they have virtually nothing in common. For one, Jiro's one of the oldest members of the Payday Gang, while Joy is easily the youngest. Jiro is a grizzled, world-weary man who has a dark, tragic past that serves as the reason why he joined. Joy is a Plucky Girl who joins the PAYDAY Gang as Locke's protege. Jiro speaks almost entirely in Japanese with a few Gratuitous English phrases peppered here and there due to being a Japanese American raised in Japan for most of his long life, while Joy speaks flawless English as she was born in Japan, but she was raised in the United States for her entire life. Even how their stories end is vastly different: Joy ends up becoming a Reformed Criminal and establishes an award-winning game development studio, while Jiro gets revenge for his wife and son by destroying his old Yakuza gang before Walking the Earth.
• Gamer Chick: She collects Nintendo consoles.
• Hacker Cave: Or rather, van. Her van outside the Safehouse acts as her room. Upgrading it will add more monitors and a game called "Bank Invaders" to open in the Steam Overlay.
• Life Drain: Killing an enemy while the feedback effect is active will restore 20 point of health. A fully upgraded Hacker perk deck will also grant other players 10 point of health when they kill an enemy as well.
• New Meat: At just 22 years old, Joy is the youngest member of the gang, beating out both Sydney (24) and Sokol (25).
• Pineapple Surprise: If she throws a grenade, Joy will quip the trope verbatim.
• Reformed Criminal: In the Golden Ending, she opens a retro arcade in Seattle and goes on to establish an award-winning game development studio. Subverted in 3, where she's one of the returning heisters.
• Scoring Points: No actual points are involved, but killing a special enemy may make her quip that she's earned an amount of points from it. According to her, Bulldozers are worth 12, Cloakers are worth 10, Tasers are worth 7, Medics are worth 6, Shields are worth 5, and Snipers are worth 3.
• Shout-Out: Her "default" mask pattern is red and light blue split in the middle, a reference to the Nintendo Switch and its JoyCon controllers, the normal colors for which are red/light blue. Her sneakers are also mismatched for one to be red and the other to be light blue.
  • Quite a few of her lines are references to gamer slang, Gaming related tropes or other franchises:
    There's Murlocks- Err, I mean Murkies everywhere!
    Hey control, everything is fine here...I was just looking for my Pokémon...You wanna trade?
• The Sneaky Gal: While the Hacker perk deck lacks the passive stealth bonuses of the Burglar, when equipped with the Pocket ECM Device it's the only perk deck with the ability to temporarily knock out electronics without the use of deployable ECMs.
• Support Party Member: During assault waves, the Hacker's role is to use the Pocket ECM Device to stun waves of enemies. With later levels of the Perk Deck, when teammates kill enemies stunned by a Hacker's Feedback Loop, it heals themselves as well as the Hacker.
• Useless Security Camera: Just like the Ghost's ECM Jammers, the Hacker's Pocket ECM Device can knock out cameras (as well as phone signals and other electronics), albeit for a shorter time, allowing the Hacker and her teammates to slip by undetected.
• You Have Researched Breathing: The Pocket ECM Jammer, a smaller version of the regular ECM all players have access to with all perk decks, but instead has more use-cases than the regular variant. It can only be used with the Hacker perk deck, and replaces whatever is in your throwable slot, much like Sicario, Kingpin, Stoic and Tag Team does with their perk decks.

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