Payday 3: How to use the 99 Boxes weapon XP glitch to gain experience fast

"Payday" just took on a whole new meaning.

Displays the container shipping yard in 99 Boxes (Payday 3).
Screenshot by Dot Esports.

99 Boxes is the penultimate heist in Payday 3, and is designed to offer a maximum of $600,000 if all loot is secured. However, the heist is bugged in a way that massively benefits those who exploit it, with huge weapon XP gains from the glitch.

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Any equipped weapons can be quickly and easily maxed out during 99 Boxes. That’s right, you can earn unlimited weapon XP during this heist with a very simple exploit.

Payday 3 fans have known about and discussed the weapon XP glitch for several days now, but Starbreeze has not yet patched it.

How to use the 99 Boxes weapon XP glitch in Payday 3

The glitch to get infinite weapon XP in 99 Boxes is very easy to pull off. Complete the heist as you normally would. At the end of the heist when you have to escape, move in and out of the escape countdown square rapidly. Every time you leave and reenter the square, additional weapon XP and skill XP is earned.

That’s really all there is too it. Moving in and out of the square for even a minute will be enough to max out weapon XP for whatever you brought along to the heist, which will unlock every available attachment for those weapons. When we tested the glitch out, spending just 15 seconds moving in and out of the square earned over 5,000 weapon XP and five new attachments.

In fact, the most difficult part of pulling of the 99 Boxes infinite weapon XP glitch was having to hear Pearl repeat the line, “Whoo! That was tight.” Every single time we moved in and out of the escape square.

Doubles as an evasive maneuver! Gameplay by Dot Esports.

The glitch can be performed solo or with others—we recommend doing it solo for two reasons. One, not everybody likes a cheater. Two, you’ll be holding other players hostage at the end of the heist, since they can’t leave until everybody escapes, and that’s just plain rude.

The 99 Boxes glitch doesn’t just work for weapon XP—it can be used to acquire unlimited skill XP as well, so keep that in mind if you’re planning to use the exploit. Skills are significantly easier to level up than weapons are in Payday 3, so the unlimited weapon XP is definitely the main boon of this glitch.

Displays the heist summary screen from Payday 3.
It’s…beautiful. Screenshot by Dot Esports.

When will the 99 boxes weapon XP glitch be patched out?

Currently, nobody has the answer to this. However, we think we know why it hasn’t been fixed yet.

Two Payday 3 developers said in this interview that it is important to them to keep all updates across all platforms synchronized. That means Starbreeze has to get the okay from Microsoft and Sony alike before any patches or hot-fixes can go live, or else the cross-platform and always-online game would end up having different versions on different platforms playing together, which could quickly become an absolute mess.

We suspect that this necessity to coordinate patches with multiple different companies is delaying the 99 Boxes weapon XP glitch from being fixed. That said, it likely won’t be around for too much longer, so get it while it’s hot.

Author
Image of Pierce Bunch
Pierce Bunch
Freelance writer and jack-of-all-games.