Payday 2 has been allowing players to live out their favorite high-risk heists, complete with hostages, explosives, and all the loot they can carry. Now, in Payday 2's new Spooning Challenge, the community has been tasked with bringing a long-held joke to fruition. Upon checking their inventory, players will see that there has been a "A Comically Large Spoon" added to the melee section of the game. Accompanying this new weapon is a challenge that plans to one-up that joke.
On April Fools' Day in the wee hours of the morning, developer Overkill released its challenge thus doubling up on meme. Announced via a Steam Update, players will have to equip the in-game Spoon for this challenge. Once they locate it on the third row of the first page, they'll need to carry it with them on each mission along with their best strategic Payday 2 character build. The goal of the community challenge is for all players to work together to get 5,000,000 kills with their spoons collectively. If they can accomplish it, then everyone who had a chance to get at least 100 kills with the Spoon unlock the "Comically Large Spoon of Gold."
The Comically Large Spoon
As with all current video game meme culture, there are a few layers to this joke that require explaining. Originating on Vine, King Bach created a video on the app where he asked his friend if he could have some of his ice cream. His friend, bewildered, relents but informs Bach he may only have a spoonful. Bach then pulls out a spoon that is tremendously larger than the size of a regular teaspoon, so large that some might find it comical. Eventually, fans were begging OVERKILL to include it, so they could beat on civilians and cops with their own giant spoon.
The meme in reference to Payday 2 originates from the popular YouTube channel TheRussianBadger, where the content creator posts videos of himself reviewing and playing games with his friends. In one video, one of his friends makes the comment about getting the developer to include the comically large spoon in the game. This led to a growing coalition of fans who began messaging, tweeting, and screaming that Overkill should add the item to the melee weapons. The developer even admits to this in the initial update, with "You spoke, you tweeted, you poked and pinged..."
Can the Fans Do It?
Currently, according to the large spoon tracker linked in the update, the Comically Large Spoon kills sit at nearly 1,000,000. So that makes almost a fifth of the way finished with the challenge by 1 pm Eastern Time. If the individuals in the community hope to reach that goal, they'll need to pick up the speed to each get 100 kills. That being said, there is no timer, and when the event ends when the Spoon reaches 5,000,000 those who don't have at least 100 kills with their own Spoon won't unlock the special gold version. There is no telling if players will have to wait another year for the challenge, if Overkill decides to do it ever again.
Hopefully, this means that players can expect more interesting content for Payday 2 until highly-anticipated Payday 3 is released. As of 8 am US East on April 3rd, the community has gotten 4,383,799 kills.
Payday 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.