Under the Surphaze places players in one of the hardest Payday 3 heists. You’ll spend hours trying to complete this heist and enjoy every minute of it to boot.
This is the type of mission Payday gamers were likely hoping for when the threequel eventually rolled around. Prepare to collect several priceless artworks, and navigate a cop and camera-filled warehouse.
How to complete the Under the Surphaze heist in Payday 3
Tips before getting started: There will be phones in almost every room. Scan them, as you’ll need one per brown door. Also, take out the security cameras as quickly as possible, it makes things so much easier.
Entering the building
You’ll start this heist off by walking around the right side of the museum. Keep going until you get past halfway down the building. There will be a vent shaft that you can climb on—this is your ticket into the building.
Mask on and climb up. If you pull this off, you won’t be spotted at all. You might have to knock a couple of people out, but they won’t see your face.
Warning: There are people outside, and they will spot you climbing up if you’re not careful.
Climb until you find the first door on the set of stairs and use your lockpick to open it. Then you’ll turn to your left and see the manager’s office in view. There will be cameras so try and be quick to open it.
Access the manager’s computer
There should be a monitor and a phone sitting on the desk. Interact with both and check the emails once they’ve loaded. These phones will be in almost every room upstairs, and you will need them to open each brown door. Collect as many as you can.
The manager walks in there randomly, and all the time. Tie him up if he does.
Write down where each painting is on the monitor. This will be important later, as you’ll need specific artwork.
For instance, my Vicario paintings were in E3 and E5. Yours might be different, but they didn’t change at all for me. There is also a safe inside this room on the wall at the back, close to the floor. A flash drive will be inside the safe and give you access to the Ladette painting later on.
The next step is to go to the room down the hall. This will be a supply room with a phone on a desk with the “Spectrophotometer” next to it.
This room can be somewhere else, but it will remain on the top floor.
Pick that up, and drop it in a stairwell nearby. This is needed for the Ladette painting and needs to be easy to pick up again. There may be a cleaner standing around the corner. He moves a lot; you’ll have plenty of time to squeeze by.
Taking out the cameras
At this point, I decided to tackle the security room. This makes things a lot easier, and you won’t have to worry about cameras for the next stage of the heist.
To do this, head left once you exit the hallway, and go down the pathway to your left. There should be a brown door on the left-hand side near the corner. Turn right, and open the security door down the hallway.
Almost all of these rooms can and likely will change. So if they’re different, don’t be surprised.
Knock out the guard, and answer his radio. Exit the security room and go to the staircase in the same hallway.
Access Exhibition Room E1
This leads you to the floor covered with guards. Your goal will be to access Exhibition Room E1, but you can skip this step for now.
You won’t be able to take the painting yet. So, head to the middle of the museum, which should have two spiral staircases on either side. On one side, there will be an iPad device on the wall. It can also be behind the bar downstairs, I found it there on multiple occasions. There is also the one upstairs that unlocks all the paintings in each room on the top floor, find it on the walls opposite the guard rails.
Activate this, and you’ll have to stand in some rings. This will make the casing around the painting accessible. Once you’ve filled the green bar, you’ll be allowed to get the painting.
The next step is to go get the painting. Head over to where your marker is on your screen, and scan the QR code next to the brown door. Now it’s time to either lockpick the case or cut through it. As enticing as it is to burn things, I used my lockpick. My game would stutter after I used the cutter, and it would shoot my pistol—thus inviting the fuzz.
Securing the painting
However, this was the point where silence was no longer an option anyway. At this part, the next step involves escaping through the crowds outside. But this is a difficult step to complete if you’ve already masked up. At this point, I started shooting.
This means you can now deliver all your paintings to the helicopter that lands upstairs. This is a massive time saver, and after you’ve completed all the previous steps, it’s significantly easier to collect everything and escape.
I went through the windows with the stairs outside. This provides an easy way to climb up to the roof and can give you a quick escape later if need be.
Light the flare and await the helicopter’s arrival. My helicopter was glitched, but I could still throw the stolen paintings through the door.
Now, the police will be arriving. Time to go downstairs and find the other paintings
Stealing the Vicario Paintings
The paintings you’ll be looking for are in either E4 or E7, and the others will be in E3 or E5. You’ll know they’re the ones you want to take thanks to your UV light. Go up to the paintings in these rooms and look for any markings shown by your UV light.
I found my first Vicario painting in E3. It might be different for you. Once you’ve grabbed one painting, run upstairs to the helicopter and throw it in—you’ll have to do this for the next one too. The other Vicario painting was located in E5. This is why getting as many QR codes as possible is useful in the beginning stages.
Take both paintings to the helicopter and get ready to steal one more piece of artwork.
Stealing the Ladette Painting
Grab the Spectrophotometer you previously dumped in one of the stairwells and head to E7. This is where I found the Ladetter painting.
Find the Ladette painting which has a white box in front of it. This is where the Spectrophotometer can be placed. Plug in the Flash Drive to see if the painting is the real Ladette painting and let it scan. Grab the original painting once it’s done and get ready to escape. Take the painting upstairs and throw it in the helicopter. Once you’ve secured the package, stand in the escape rectangle next to the helicopter.
Wait until the timer goes down, and you’ve completed the mission.
