Payday 3: How to stealth Boys in Blue

After a long drought of content, Payday 3’s next DLC heist Boys in Blue is finally out. Here’s how to complete the new mission in stealth without raising the alarm.

Boys in Blue is the first heist to be added to Payday 3 in 2024 as part of the game’s Year 1 DLC roadmap, tasking you with infiltrating a police station to take back some gold for Vlad. 

The heist allows you to play in both loud and stealth, with the objectives playing out differently depending on your approach. 

If you’re struggling to sneak through the heist without setting off any alarms, we’ve put together a walkthrough to ensure you can stealth Boys in Blue without any issues.

How to stealth Boys in Blue in Payday 3

First of all, make sure you’re using our recommended stealth loadout for Payday 3 before you load up Boys in Blue. When you begin, you should first head inside the police station in front of you via the main entrance. 

Here are all the guard locations we have found so far, bear in mind the exact number may differ depending on the difficulty:

• Several police officers outside near vehicles
• At least one officer patrolling the downstairs corridor
• At least one officer patrolling the downstairs area behind the desk
• At least two officers patrolling the upstairs office
• One officer in the camera room upstairs
• At least four officers patrolling the parking lot, split between the lot itself and some security rooms

Once you’re inside the police station lobby, there’ll be a box of donuts on the desk at reception, which comes in handy later. 

Make sure you’re standing near a civilian to trigger Rush from the Grifter Basic skill and pick up the donuts without raising suspicion using the Social Engineering skill.

Where to find the Captain’s office

Shade will task you with heading upstairs and finding the Captain’s office. Look at the door opposite the main desk in the lobby and lockpick it. Make sure Rush is still active before you do this, and loop any nearby cameras if they’re pointed at the door.

Through this door, there’s a flight of stairs on your left you can ascend into the upstairs office. Watch out for the guard who patrols this area. Before you head up the stairs, you may also want to unlock some of the exterior doors in this corridor to allow easier access from outside.

There’ll be at least two guards in the upstairs office, each one patrolling a different side. Mark them when you can and avoid them as you skirt along the edge of the room to find the Captain’s office. Use the civilian workers to replenish your Rush with Social Engineering. Find the door with the Captain plaque next to it and lockpick the door.

The Police Captain is in his office, which is also a Secure Area, so don’t enter the room without Rush enabled. Shade will mention that you need to get the Captain out of there with a distraction. You can either mask up and tie him down, or better yet, stay unmasked and place the donuts in the kitchen on the other side of the office.

Once you’ve placed the donuts, the Captain and the other cops in the upstairs office will go to the kitchen and stay there for the time being. This means you’ll be a little safer moving around the upstairs area, but if you’re playing on Overkill be mindful of the Lead Guard who may come through here.

With the Captain out of the way, hack the PC in his office and wait for the bar to fill. When it gets to around halfway, an additional layer of security will kick in and you need to hack a second PC somewhere in the main office. Find the PC and interact with it without anyone noticing.

When that’s done, head back to the Captain’s office to finish the hack. You’ll then be able to read his emails. Take note of the email which describes a locker holding a red keycard. You’ll need this information for later.

Now you need a fingerprint of the person authorized to access the evidence room. Shade will call out a name and it’s your task to find the desk to grab a copy of their fingerprints. In our testing, it was always a guy named Jeramy, though it’s currently unknown if other names can be selected.

Find the worker’s desk and interact with an item there to grab the fingerprints. This can be a mug or a set of files. Once you’ve found the fingerprints, go back downstairs. 

QR codes and red keycard

You now need a QR code to get inside the locker room, which is locked by a scanner. You can obtain a code by either searching for phones located around the station or by hacking one from a police officer.

In our testing, we found cell phones with QR codes in two locations: 

• Found on desks in the upstairs office
• Found on a desk in the downstairs office near reception

If you find a phone, interact with it to pick up the QR code.

Another way to get a QR code is to find a police officer with a phone dangling from their belt. This cop can be located either in the parking lot or inside the station downstairs. 

Interacting with this phone will allow you to hack into it, provided you can stay within the circle for the full amount of time. Be sure not to leave the circle while the hack is occurring, otherwise you’ll need to start again.

Once you have the QR code, go back to the dark corridor (the one that still looks under construction you passed through on your way upstairs earlier). It has one guard patrolling it. In here you’ll find a locked door with a QR scanner. Scan the code and enter the locker room.

In the locker room, there is a large number of lockers with numbers assigned to them. The locker holding the keycard matches the number on the email you found earlier on the Captain’s PC. In the other lockers, you may find bonus loot such as money bundles.

While there aren’t any guards in the locker room, be wary that the Lead Guard on higher difficulties may pass through here.  As this is a Secure Area, getting spotted will risk the entire heist going loud.

Use the civilians in here to refresh your Rush and lockpick the correct locker. Once you have the correct locker, pick up the Red Keycard and leave the room. 

Optional objective: Place the listening devices

At this point, tackling Boys in Blue’s optional objective is a good idea if you want to go for it. Completing optional objectives doesn’t appear to give you extra XP or cash, so chasing these goals is purely for bragging rights.

Nevertheless, here’s what to do if you want to complete the optional objective. Shade will ask you to place listening devices in three locations related to the Lieutenant:

• Bug the Lieutenant’s car
  • The car can be found either in the parking lot or on the street outside the police station. Place the bug underneath the trunk.
• Bug the Lieutenant’s desk
  • Find the Lieutenant’s office on the upper floor of the station. It’s marked similar to the Captain’s office. There’ll be a spot under his desk to place the bug
• Bug the Lieutenant’s locker
  • The correct locker number can be learned from his office, and then it’s just a case of finding the right locker in the locker room.

Once you’ve completed the optional objective, Shade will be happy and you can continue with the rest of the heist.

Access the evidence room

Now that you have the fingerprints and the Red Keycard, it’s time to go to the evidence room.

You can get there by either heading back to the main lobby area of the station and lockpicking the door beside the front desk, or by going up the stairs into the office and sneaking across to the other side of the room and down another set of stairs. Either way, you’ll find yourself in a large hallway with a guard patrolling it.

The evidence room is located on the left-hand side of the room, with the door requiring the Red Keycard to access. Once you’ve unlocked the door you can head inside.

On lower difficulties, there will be a civilian in here. If you’re still unmasked, you can easily get around this guy by using Grifter Basic and Social Engineering to refresh your Rush and skirt around him. 

On higher difficulties, this NPC is replaced with a guard and there will also be a camera here. So it’s recommended here to loop this camera and mask up to kill him.

There’s another camera in the hallway ahead, so if you have an extra runtime be sure to loop it and move down the corridor to the locked door. Activate the fingerprint scanner and open the door to gain access to the evidence room.

In the evidence room, you’ll find groups of boxes you can open up for additional loot, but the main prize is in a smaller room to the back behind a locked cage door. Lockpick the door and grab the Gold. The escape van will then soon appear outside, either on the street or behind a fence in the parking lot.

There’s an additional layer of security that prevents you from carrying the bags on your back through the corridor outside the evidence room. A pressure plate mechanism means you can’t walk out with the loot.

Instead, find a little space in the wall next to the cage with the gold. If you press the button next to it, you can pop bags in there to collect from the other side of the wall.

If you’re playing with other people, it’s a good idea to have them collect these bags while unmasked and take them to the van. Carrying the loot on your back doesn’t raise any suspicion with cops or civilians, and even if a guard finds you trespassing in a Private Area, they’ll just escort you out.

If you’re masked up, the best way to reach the van is to leave the evidence room, head back into the private area, and go out the door on the far side of the room. This will lead to the parking lot, where it’s easy to use the cars as cover. Head to the back of the parking lot and open up the car garage which provides you with easy access to and from the street.

If the escape van is parked on the street, he’ll be found right outside the garage full of police vehicles. If he’s in the lot, you can find him behind a fence on the far side of the parking lot. Toss the bags in the van to secure them.

Once you’ve secured all the gold bags you need, the escape zone will trigger. Make sure everyone steps into the zone around the van and after a short countdown, the heist will end. And that’s how you stealth Boys in Blue in Payday 3.

Now that you’ve successfully sneaked through Boys in Blue, you’ll be ready for Payday 3’s next DLC heist when it launches, The Land of the Free.

For all other heists in Payday 3, check out the full mission list. Be sure to also see the best heists to make some fast cash, as well as details on how the new solo mode works.