Payday 3 Rock The Cradle Overkill Guide: How To Complete

Overkill difficulty for Payday 3's Rock the Cradle mission can be challenging. Switching between stealth and masking up at a moment's notice halfway through the mission is necessary. This is because we need to quietly disable security systems and make the nightclub vulnerable before pulling out the big guns.

Unfortunately, if players are caught halfway through the mission and set off the alarm, player progress will be ruined, and the mission will have to be restarted. In this guide, we share step-by-step instructions to get Rock the Cradle Overkill mission completed in Payday 3.

Update on 22 November 2023: We've updated this article with the latest information on completing Rock the Cradle in Payday 3 on Overkill difficulty.

If being sneaky is more your style, check out our dedicated Payday 3 Rock the Cradle Stealth guide.

Completing Rock the Cradle on Overkill difficulty is recommended to be played with a squad! 

Payday 3 Rock The Cradle Overkill Guide: First Steps

Evaluating the appropriate Overkill strategy is vital for success; the majority of players would enter the nightclub, mask up, and wreak havoc; however, we're changing things up. Players are going to maintain concealment until reaching the VIP section, where the majority of the loot is located; this will create a significantly easier playthrough.

Players who set off the alarm will have to fight tooth and nail to reach the VIP section. Instead, we can be a little sneaky and enter easily.

NOTE: Players should not equip their masks in moments of doubt, despite playing as a team and likely alerting the guards once, maintain composure, and continue without the detained player if necessary. If anyone is caught roaming restricted areas, continue with the "I'm lost" narrative and wait until the coast is clear to re-enter restricted and private areas. 

1. After spawning, every player should proceed toward the nightclub. Make your way to the back room until you arrive at the "VIP CLUB." 
2. Across from the VIP club entrance, enter the locked room adjacent to the bar. This room needs lock picking, and you need to slip through this door without being detected by NPCs. Beyond this point, access is restricted to staff members only.
3. Once you successfully unlock the door, one player must quietly follow up the stairs without drawing attention to themselves. The nightclub manager is known to roam this area.
4. Upstairs, there will be a room with a camera positioned to the left of the DJ. Avoid the camera's line of sight by standing underneath it and unlocking the door.
5. You are now inside the manager's office. Proceed to hack the computer to locate the manager and retrieve all VIP and club information, read the information on the computer.
6. Return downstairs and search for the manager, who is typically found either roaming the dance floor, outside near the spawn area, or in restricted VIP/staff zones.
7. Once you locate the manager, initiate the hacking prompt and remain within proximity to the manager while hacking. This action will grant you access to VIP passes.
8. Upon successfully hacking the manager's phone, return upstairs to the manager's office and acquire the VIP passes located in the display case to the right of the PC.
9. Players who are completionists may also want to steal the painting within the manager's office and pass it to friends or friendly AI for stashing before continuing the mission.
10. We need to scan our VIP passes on a laptop. This laptop will be either opposite the stairs room (right side of the bar), the upstairs room to the right of the DJ, or the upstairs VIP area at the front of the club (stairs by the right side of the entrance). 

Players have now gained access successfully to the VIP locations underneath and above the nightclub. These locations will contain all the necessary loot for us to steal. Players will have a choice of three items to steal: Bitcoin, Cocaine, and money. It's not vital to the mission to steal everything, and this comes down to personal choice. The game will prompt players when enough loot has been stolen, and they can extract safely from the mission. 

Payday 3 Rock the Cradle Overkill: How To Escape

Once passing into the "VIP CLUB," players will have the option to begin wreaking havoc or simply continue being stealthy. My advice would be to continue stealth until you've secured loot. This is simply so we can extract money and cocaine more easily; players who set off the alarms now will be required to extract in a more difficult style.

1. Head back to the "VIP CLUB" double doors and show the guards your pass; before going downstairs, grab the keycard off the guard's back. Go down the stairs and locate the rooms "Accountants office" and "IT-room" that will be sign-posted on the doors. 
2. Head into the accountant's office stairs, be careful of the camera facing the office, and enter the room. There will be a red keycard in the safe that needs to be looted. Additionally, there will be cash and cocaine in this room to steal, extract the loot, and continue robbing.
3. Head to the maintenance room opposite the DJ in the VIP area and loot all the cocaine and money inside the location. Be careful of cameras and passing security guards. You'll need to lockpick the room before continuing to steal.
4. Head back up to the accountant's office and take notes of the codes scattered around the room, then go back to the maintenance office and loot the vault in the immediate first right door to steal more cocaine and money. 
5. After securing the loot inside the extraction locations (prompted), players can finally pull out the big guns and begin killing, taking hostages, and robbing to escape quickly. Once all the loot has been secured, players don't need to worry about ruining progress by masking up.
6. After masking up, players have the option to continue robbing and looking for cocaine and cash. However, it's recommended players extract safely and not get greedy.

Players that wish to steal the Bitcoin wallet, please refer to step three of section two on the stealth guide for the Rock the Cradle mission. Please note this mission is significantly easier on Overkill and difficult to maintain concealment until unlocking the VIP section and securing loot.

Once masking up and not securing loot, players ruin all progress and are back to square one. This is because we have to secure the loot differently and extract differently when playing overt.

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