Some parts of downloadable content were also made outside of Overkill, such as music tracks by electronica artist Le Castle Vania and heists from spin-off developer LionGameLion (who later used the same engine and concept for RAID: World War II). The game received numerous cross-promotional content with not only other games (such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Hotline Miami), but also feature films (such as John Wick and Scarface). Most of these content and updates were rolled into later console versions. The game has also received numerous downloadable content packs (both free and paid), adding additional weapons, heists, playable characters, and masks. Over the years, most of Payday 2's gameplay mechanics in the Steam version were updated, expanded, and sometimes completely revamped (including new weapon and enemy types, additional difficulty levels, the ability to drive vehicles, a complete restructure of the Skill Tree system, and full VR support).

Along with an expanded metagame, the game now takes advantage of heists that are both dynamic (with random events and object placements), extended (sometimes splitting the heist into separate levels, or 'days'), and completely stealthable. Using the CRIMENET interface, players can progress through various sizes of heists (from small-time convenience stores to major bank vaults), upgrade their criminal's special skills through Skill Trees, purchase various unlocked weapons and weapon modifications, and customize their unlocked masks with randomly-earned materials, patterns, and pattern colors. The crew now take advantage of CRIMENET, an underground criminal network (led by their handler, the mysterious Bain) where they accept contracts from criminal contacts such as deranged up-and-coming Vlad the Ukrainian, shady American politician 'The Elephant', and Colombian drug trafficker Hector. (among, later on, other locales) for an epic crime spree. In this sequel to Payday: The Heist, players team up as masked criminals as they descend on Washington, D.C. It was later released for the Xbox One (on June 26, 2015), PlayStation 4 (on June 16, 2015), Linux (via Steam on March 21, 2016), and Nintendo Switch (ported by Sumo Digital on February 27, 2018). Payday 2 (stylized as PAYDAY 2) is a co-operative crime-themed first-person shooter developed by Overkill and published by 505 (later by Starbreeze) for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC (via Steam) on August 13, 2013.

Payday 2 stopping