Payday: The Heist is free on Steam for the next 24 hours

The third anniversary freebies have included a Golden AK, the Old Hoxton character pack DLC, and a mask from Bain.

The promotion has started. Head here to grab your free copy of Payday: The Heist. You'll be able to add it to your Steam account, for nothing, until 10am PDT tomorrow, October 17.

Original: To celebrate three years of the Paydayfranchise, developer Overkill Software is making the original Payday: The Heist free—but only for a day.

The third anniversary freebies have included a Golden AK, the Old Hoxton character pack DLC, and a mask from Bain. For those of you who don't already have Payday: The Heist, however, the reward for hitting 1.05 million members in the Payday 2 Steam Groupis the most significant, because it means the game will be completely free on Steam, for a 24-hour period beginning at 10 am PDT on October 16.

"This was going to happen on the 18th originally but since you guys did such an awesome job we want to give you the reward as soon as possible," Overkill Producer Almir Listo wrote. "Tell your friends and family that they can download Payday: The Heist for free on Thursday morning of October 16th at 10AM Pacific. We'll give out clear instructions on how to download it come Thursday."

That's the big news from a practical perspective, but that's not all: Reaching 1.5 million members in the Payday 2 Steam group means that Secret Stuff, represented by a winking smiley, has also been unlocked. Overkill is keeping the final unlock a secret but it will "completely overkill," according to the CrimeFest chart, and free to all members of the community when it's ready.