PAYDAY 3 Under the Surphaze Guide: Stealth, Loud, Paintings & Best Route
Under the Surphaze looks like PAYDAY 3 has emptied an entire filing cabinet of objectives onto the floor, but the actual robbery is much simpler.
You need four target paintings: Greg Jud, two Vicario paintings and the genuine True Ladette. The smartest route is to find the Manager’s Office early, check the emails for the painting locations, start disabling the security bars on both floors as soon as possible, and deal with the paintings while those hacks are progressing.
Stealth and loud follow essentially the same robbery. The big difference comes at extraction: stealth uses the van, while loud has you light a flare on the roof and throw the bags into a helicopter.
And unless you specifically want everything, you do not need to steal all 20 pieces of loot. You are professional art thieves, not a museum clearance company.
Planning another robbery? Our PAYDAY 3 Heists Ranked guide tells you which jobs are worth casing next, and which ones deserve to remain somebody else’s problem.
Under the Surphaze Quick Route
Enter E1 --> find smartphones --> locate Manager’s Office --> check emails --> start disabling security bars --> disable cameras if possible --> steal Greg Jud --> steal both Vicario paintings --> get flash drive from Manager’s Office safe --> find spectrophotometer in Server Room --> identify genuine True Ladette --> steal it --> secure required loot --> escape
If you go loud:
Follow the same objectives --> light the flare on the roof --> bring bags upstairs --> throw them into the helicopter --> escape
That is the robbery underneath all the objective spam.
What Changes Between Runs?
Under the Surphaze has enough randomisation that memorising one exact route is a good way to become extremely confident while walking towards the wrong room.
The Manager’s Office, Security Room and Server Room can change location, and the paintings you need are not always sitting in the same exhibits.
The two Vicario paintings can move between exhibits. The True Ladette paintings appear in E4 and E7, with one being genuine and the other fake. You need to determine which is real before stealing your target.
QR codes from smartphones also matter for getting through locked areas, so grab useful phones as you encounter them.
This is why the Manager’s Office should be one of your early priorities.
Find the Manager’s Office First
Once inside the gallery, start searching for the Manager’s Office on the second floor.
Use the computer and read the emails.
This gives you information about where the important paintings are located, which removes a lot of pointless gallery tourism from the heist. Instead of checking exhibits individually and hoping the painting you need happens to be inside, you can actually plan the robbery.
Revolutionary stuff.
Apparently the Surphaze management team keeps sensitive information about its priceless collection in emails accessible from the office containing the secret safe. At some point this stops being a burglary and becomes a fairly brutal penetration test.
You also need this room later because the flash drive is hidden inside a concealed safe in the Manager’s Office.
Get it while you're there if possible. There is very little benefit in leaving useful robbery equipment behind so you can enjoy the pleasure of returning for it later.
Start the Security-Bar Hacks ASAP
There are separate security systems controlling the ground-floor and upper-floor exhibit bars.
Start both as early as you reasonably can.
Once the process is running, you can hack devices to speed it up. The important part is that you do not need to stand around treating the progress meter like television. Start the system, continue with the robbery, and hack devices whenever doing so fits naturally into your route.
By the time you need access to the protected paintings, a large part of the work may already be finished.
This is probably the single biggest thing that makes Under the Surphaze feel less cumbersome.
The objective list encourages you to think sequentially:
Do this.
Now do this.
Now go upstairs.
Now hack that.
Now come back.
Don't.
Under the Surphaze works much better when several parts of the robbery are happening simultaneously. Start the security systems, gather your intel, collect the equipment and rob whatever becomes available along the way.
You are running a heist, not following IKEA instructions.
Disable the Cameras
If you find the Security Room, disabling the cameras makes stealth substantially easier.
Do it.
You still have guards and exhibit security to deal with, but removing cameras eliminates an entire layer of surveillance from the building. On the higher difficulties especially, that is worth the detour when you can reach the room safely.
I wouldn't destroy an otherwise clean run just to reach it immediately. Under the Surphaze rewards efficiency, and spending five dangerous minutes trying to eliminate a problem you could have simply avoided is the sort of tactical genius usually discovered shortly before somebody shouts for the police.
But if the Security Room is conveniently accessible, cameras can fuck right off.
How to Steal the Greg Jud Painting
The Greg Jud painting is in E1.
This is the straightforward target.
Once the downstairs security bars have been dealt with, enter the exhibit, remove the protection and take the painting.
One down.
Enjoy this moment. The museum is about to become significantly more bureaucratic.
How to Find the Two Vicario Paintings
You need two Vicario paintings, but their exhibit locations can change between runs.
This is where those Manager’s Office emails earn their keep.
Check the intel rather than assuming that the locations from your previous run will still apply. Once you know which exhibits contain the paintings, you can plan the rest of your route around them.
Steal both once their respective security systems allow access.
You now have three of the four required paintings.
Prefer committing felonies without three strangers improvising beside you? See which PAYDAY 3 jobs actually work best alone in our Best Heists for Solo Players guide.
How to Find the Genuine True Ladette Painting
True Ladette is the fiddlier target because PAYDAY 3 makes you distinguish the genuine painting from the fake.
The paintings can appear in E4 and E7.
To identify the genuine one, you need two things:
the flash drive from the hidden safe in the Manager’s Office
the spectrophotometer from the Server Room
Find the Server Room and grab the spectrophotometer. With the necessary equipment, you can identify which True Ladette is genuine.
Then remove the glass and security protection and steal the real painting.
At this point you have the four paintings needed for the robbery.
Greg Jud.
Vicario.
Vicario.
True Ladette.
Art history has rarely involved this much trespassing.
Under the Surphaze Stealth Walkthrough
For stealth, the best approach is to spend the early part of the heist preparing the entire gallery rather than immediately chasing paintings.
Get inside E1 and collect smartphones when useful. Find the Manager’s Office and check the emails. Grab the flash drive while you're there if you can.
Locate the security controls and begin disabling the bars for both floors as early as possible. Hack devices along your route to accelerate the process.
If you find the Security Room and can reach it safely, disable the cameras.
Then start collecting your targets.
Take Greg Jud from E1, hit the two exhibits containing your Vicarios, find the Server Room for the spectrophotometer, identify the genuine True Ladette and steal it.
Secure the required paintings at the van.
Once the necessary loot is secured, you can escape.
Or you can look back at the enormous building full of unsecured expensive art and make the decision every PAYDAY player eventually makes.
"Well... we're already here."
Should You Steal All 20 Pieces of Loot?
You can keep robbing the gallery and secure all 20 pieces of regular loot.
Whether you should is another question.
If you're specifically clearing the gallery, chasing additional loot or simply enjoying a strong stealth run, go for it. Once the cameras are disabled and the security systems are under control, the gallery becomes much easier to work through.
But every additional exhibit means more movement, more guard encounters and more opportunities to turn a successful robbery into an emergency firearms demonstration.
For a straightforward completion, get the required paintings and leave.
PAYDAY has always understood the peculiar psychology of optional loot. The game can put the escape directly in front of you, tell you that the robbery has succeeded, and offer you complete freedom.
Then somebody notices another painting.
Five minutes later four heavily armed criminals are risking decades in prison because leaving one bag behind suddenly feels financially irresponsible.
Under the Surphaze Loud Walkthrough
If stealth breaks, the core robbery doesn't suddenly transform into a different heist.
You still need the same important paintings. You still need to deal with the exhibit security. You still need the equipment required to identify the genuine True Ladette.
The difference is that the museum has stopped wondering whether it is being robbed.
Once you're loud, keep working through the same objectives while dealing with the police assault. Finish the security-bar objectives, collect Greg Jud, both Vicarios and the genuine True Ladette, and bag whatever additional art you intend to take.
The major change is extraction.
Go to the roof and light the flare.
This calls in the helicopter used to secure your loot. Instead of carrying paintings to the stealth van, bring your bags to the roof and throw them into the chopper.
That changes the geography of the final part considerably. In stealth, the question is how quietly you can move loot out of the gallery. Loud turns the building into a vertical conveyor belt where priceless paintings have to travel upstairs while the police vigorously object to your new career in aviation logistics.
Get the required bags into the helicopter, then escape when the objective allows it.
The useful thing to remember is that going loud doesn't invalidate everything you've already done.
If you've checked the Manager’s Office, started the security hacks and gathered your equipment before the alarm goes off, that preparation still matters. A failed stealth run can therefore become a perfectly functional loud completion instead of an automatic restart.
Normal vs Hard vs Very Hard
The basic route remains the same across the difficulties.
On Normal, learn the building and the objective flow. There is already enough going on between QR codes, guards, cameras, security systems and painting identification without voluntarily adding more people who would like to shoot you.
Hard increases the pressure with more guards, cameras and dangerous spaces, but it doesn't fundamentally rewrite the robbery. The same preparation-first approach still works.
On Very Hard, the exhibits become significantly more troublesome because you're dealing with double security inside them, alongside the additional guard and camera pressure. Knowing your target locations before committing to an exhibit becomes even more useful here.
The answer isn't a completely different route.
It's fewer stupid decisions.
Disable cameras when possible. Get your intel. Start the security systems early. Don't wander into exhibits simply because there appears to be something expensive inside.
There is something expensive inside.
It's an art gallery.
Done with Surphaze? The PAYDAY Hub has the rest of CRIMENET’s heists, walkthroughs and criminal paperwork in one place. Pick your next offence.
Best Under the Surphaze Route
If you only remember one thing, remember this:
Manager’s Office --> security systems --> cameras --> paintings.
Find out where your targets are before wasting time hunting for them. Start both security-bar hacks early so they progress while you're doing useful work. Disable the cameras when the opportunity is good. Collect the flash drive and spectrophotometer as part of your route rather than as separate errands.
Then take the four paintings you actually need.
If stealth survives, secure them at the van.
If everything goes to hell, light the rooftop flare and start feeding paintings to a helicopter.
Under the Surphaze only looks like twenty different jobs because PAYDAY 3 presents every moving part individually. Once you overlap them, the whole thing becomes a much cleaner art heist.
Until you decide to steal all 20 bags.
Then that's between you, your accountant and whatever remains of the Surphaze collection.
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