Houston — payday

	This article is about the new heister and former replacement of Hoxton. For the returning character, see Hoxton.

Houston
PD 3 PD 2 Mask Paper Houston in Payday 3. Houston in Payday 2. Houston's character icon. Houston's paper craft model.
Career information
Role	Ghost & Rogue
Affiliation(s)	The Payday Gang
Signature weapons
Ranged	Freedom's Fortune
Biographical information
Also known as	Hoxton (temporarily) Franklin Steele
Nationality	American
Language(s)	English
Age	31 - (PAYDAY 2) 42 - (PAYDAY 3)
Physical description
Hair color	Blonde
Eye color	Hazel
Height	6' 0''
Build	Slender
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Other
Appearance(s)	PAYDAY: The Web Series PAYDAY 2 PAYDAY 3
Portrayed by	Derek Ray
Voiced by	Derek Ray
Quotes	Quotation page
Room	Houston's Workshop
Internal name	`american (PAYDAY 2) star (PAYDAY 3)`
v·d·e

FBI Description

FBI Files: We believe that this gangmember^(sic) was using the alias of “Hoxton” until the break-out of James Hoxworth. Since then, according to security footage, he has adopted the alias “Houston”. He was present at the break-out of “Hoxton” and that, and subsequently acquired security footage, seems to hint at a level of animosity between the two men.

Observations of “Houston” indicate that he may favor fulfilling the Ghost role. This could indicate training in infiltration and espionage, and may provide further leads to his identity.

"Don’t act dumb!"

—Houston intimidating a civilian.

Houston, alias Franklin Steele, (originally called Hoxton) is a playable character in PAYDAY 2 and PAYDAY 3, and the younger brother of Dallas. He is a 42-year-old American, and up until the release of Hoxton Breakout, Houston had taken on the mantle of Hoxton, assuming his alias and mask. After the release of the Hoxton Breakout heist, the name reverted back to the original Hoxton, while the mask remained in Houston's hands.

He returns in PAYDAY 3 as an NPC in the Houston Breakout DLC and is the game’s 8th playable heister.

In PAYDAY 2, PAYDAY 3, and the Web Series, he is portrayed and voiced by Derek Ray.

Background

Description

Houston could never hold a job even if his life would depend on it. His life style turned him to a life of cons and burglary. His debts grew, as did his collection of enemies from years of being a swindler. He needed to gather larger and larger sums of money to keep the loan sharks at bay. He committed his first major felony at the age of 24 and the stakes have only increased since.

Before the breakout of the former crew member, Houston bore the alias of Hoxton. The name "Houston" was "invented" by the fugitive on the spot to "get his name back" and to solve the "fucking problem" on their hands.

Offshore Payday

After the true ending of PAYDAY 2, Houston partakes in the beach party alongside most of the Payday gang.

During his retirement, Houston set up a bar in Mexico as a mediator for deals between criminals and government officials.

PAYDAY 3

At some point between the start of PAYDAY 3 and Houston Breakout, Houston was imprisoned for grand larceny and tax evasion, though the Dragan Files ARG implies that Houston was arrested on false charges in the Prospect 2 files. He later broke his hands during a prison brawl and further injured them after attacking the judge during his trial.

Shade decrypts some files the crew obtained and is discovers messages sent by Concord talking about 'Prisoner 270-82014', someone unknown to them that is being currently held at Rikers Island but will be shortly transferred to a private prison. John Concord, the ex-CEO of Murkywater and the one responsible for (attempting to) assassinate the various heisters of the former Payday gang, wants Blythe to plant evidence to frame this prisoner further. Hacking into the police database, they discover that the person being held there is their former crew member and Dallas' younger brother, Houston. Dallas calls for the crew to return to the safehouse to plan how to stop Concord from going after him.

Although Houston was successfully rescued by the original four members of the gang, he was unable to assist them during the breakout due to his broken hands. In between the events of Houston Breakout and Fear & Greed, his hands healed up and he rejoined the Payday gang by helping Dallas, Wolf, and Joy go after Concord's stocks by raiding Wall Street.

Behind The Scenes

Originally, Houston was created as a complete replacement for Hoxton, as Pete Gold wasn't asked to reprise his role for unknown reasons. Derek Ray was cast as Hoxton in the PAYDAY Web Series before portraying the character in-game as well.

Due to the overwhelming demands from the PAYDAY Community to bring the old heister back, Overkill Software has published the backstory of Hoxton's arrest that leads up to the release of the Hoxton Breakout heist and re-introduction of the former Hoxton. Pete Gold has also returned to provide the voice of his original character and the new name, Houston, was given to the new character as to avoid confusions.

Trivia

PAYDAY 2

A popular fan theory, based on his character descriptions and quotes, Houston seems to have some level of dislike towards large crowds of civilians (dominating) or having to talk with people he's unfamiliar with (pagers), and is easy to frustrate when things don't go according to plan or if he's caught outside of his element (broken drill, special units appearing, etc...). On top of that, his character is noted to be highly obsessed with efficiency, following strict personal routines and good maintenance, most of which are indicative traits of a mildly autistic individual. (This has not been confirmed by the developers and is entirely based on community interpretation of Houston.)
- According to Bain, Houston takes heisting very seriously; he prefers to drink root beer to keep his focus sharp and can say when three minutes has passed on the second without looking at his watch.
- Houston is somewhat of a control freak, cleaning his guns constantly to reduce the risk of them jamming, not wanting to leave anything to chance.
  - Although Houston takes very good care of his guns, he appears to be forgetful when it comes to packing ammo, as he always either runs critically low on ammo, or out completely in every live-action short that features him in combat.
- Houston is in charge of maintaining the crew's escape van following the introduction of the new Safe House, hinting at some experiences as a mechanic or at least a reasonable amount of knowledge on automobiles. True to this, he voices a great amount of pride in his handiwork when spoken to in the garage, even going so far as to claim that no one could have put the escape van together better than he can.
  - Houston is annoyed at Rust for stealing his tools from time to time to work on the older heister's motorbike ("Hey that grumpy old biker fuck took my wrench. He'd better stop taking my stuff or we'll have a problem.")
Before the release of Hoxton Breakout, Houston's alias and mask were both that of Hoxton. Houston retains Hoxton's original mask as his own, though the alias was returned to the original Hoxton.
- As such, Houston retains the internal name "american" Hoxton had during development of PAYDAY: The Heist.
- Because the return of the former Hoxton was not yet planned during the Web Series's (and by extension, PAYDAY 2's) production, Houston was temporarily given the mantle before eventually gaining his own alias.
- The nickname "Houston" can be heard used by the other crew members even before Hoxton fashioned it for his replacement (he may never even mention it at all during the first day, due to random dialogue). Chains can be heard calling out for Houston before the heist starts even if neither of them are present in the current crew.
- In the Breakout trailer Houston is referred to as such by Wolf, before the new name was canonically given.
Houston's name is a reference to Houston, Texas; it is a parallel to Dallas's name. The city of Houston is considered a "sibling" city to Dallas, Texas, which fits the relationship of the eponymous characters quite well.
- The name also doubled as a sly jab from Hoxton, referencing the colliqualism "Houston, we have a problem," referencing their shared animosity.
Houston seems to have a certain level of attachment to his mask when he was filling in for Hoxton. When the freshly-broken out Hoxton voiced the need for a mask, the group all turned towards Houston, who showed sadness at the prospect of giving it up.
Houston is the younger brother of Dallas.
- In the end cutscene of the Boys in Blue DLC in PAYDAY 3, Houston's prisoner name is revealed to be Franklin Steele. It is likely that this is an alias as Nathan Steele is confirmed to not be Dallas's birth name, but an alias, by SINS. The brothers appear to have coordinated their aliases so they would share a last name.
Houston is the driver of the armored truck in the Breakout trailer. This role is replaced by Twitch in the real heist.
- Houston is seen wielding an FN SCAR-L in the same trailer, though given the weaponry seen in the live-action videos of PAYDAY 2 differs wildly from the in-game roster, this is not unusual. That being said, he is the only one (sans Hoxton) not to wield an in-game weapon, as Dallas carries a Bernetti 9, a Crosskill and an Uzi (actually a Mini-Uzi, neither of the in-game variants) while briefly using two rifles similar to the CAR-4 during the car chase, Chains packs a KSP and Wolf uses what seems to be a modified GSPS 12G.
In the first webisode, it is shown that Houston has an Apple iPhone that he uses to run a countdown until the law enforcers' arrival/assault phase.
Despite having the role of Ghost, Houston will often exclaim "Shit!" and "Look!" very loudly when marking guards and cameras during stealth, as opposed to quietly pointing one out like the rest of the crew.
- Houston is seen cocking a silenced Bernetti 9 in his Skills menu portrait.
If Houston attempts to revive a player as an AI-controlled character, he will sometimes comment: "I think I saw you in the Walking Dead", referencing the popular comic & television series.
Hoxton is apparently on bad terms with his former replacement, as he, when calling out to Houston, will refer to him using various insults such as calling him "Dickhead," "Kiss my Ass," and "Shit for brains" among other names. This is probably personal disdain for "replacing" him in the first place. However, Hoxton does state that "He's (Houston) not completely useless."
- Houston appears to not be as vocal in his dislike of Hoxton, though he does callously refer to him as a "Fucking twat." under his breath, after they escape from the carpark. In one of the loading screen trivia statements, Houston is said to think Hoxton is an idiot.
- Conversely, as of Update 97, Houston now has lines that insult Hoxton directly, such as "Teabag" and the other expletives that Hoxton uses, like "Dickhead".
- In the Safe House, playing as Hoxton and interacting with Houston will make the latter respond with scathing insults, such as Houston making jabs at Hoxton possibly getting arrested again "like an amateur".
Houston is the only character with two Crime.Net Database descriptions.
He sometimes uses the same lines as Dallas when completing a Heist.
- One of Houston's civilian intimidation lines ("Don't act dumb!") has grown to be a popular joke among PAYDAY 2's playerbase, so much so that it even has an official game soundtrack in which it serves as the primary remix material. The song consists of Houston saying "Don't act dumb!" (or through his distinctive accent, "Don ac dum!") over and over again in various remixed beats. Chains, Clover, and Hoxton also have a few lines in the song.

PAYDAY 3

In PAYDAY 3, Houston was revealed to be incarcerated in Riker's Island with the prisoner ID number 270-82014'. This date closely resembles the release of the Hoxton Breakout heist, 27/10/2014, just being two months off.
Derek Ray confirmed his return to PAYDAY 3 as Houston on Twitter/X^[1].
Houston's face was initially obscured in promotional material after his return was teased in the Boys In Blue heist. His face was finally shown during PAYDAY 3's Gamescom 2024 stream^[2].
- If a player inspects Houston's model from the Houston Breakout heist, it can be seen that the mask that obscures Houston's face is hiding a missing chunk of his face. This is likely because Starbreeze had not finished Houston's model by the time of Houston Breakout's release. This may also be why Houston's face is never directly shown in the trailers as well.

Houston no longer yells out loud during stealth, calling out guards, civilians and cameras by whispering instead of loudly proclaiming swears upon spotting something of interest.

Upon Clover's return in PAYDAY 3, she will accidentally refer to Hoxton as Houston when calling him out, before immediately correcting herself. Since she had met Hoxton years before Houston, this could be either a genuine mistake or she is making fun of the animosity between the two.
Houston's relationship with Hoxton is still troubled, as shown when Houston - during his breakout - may complain the thermal lance used to free his imprisonment during loud is "as slow as Hoxton".
- Playing as Houston and calling Hoxton during stealth or the control phase of loud will call Hoxton various phrases, such as "teabagger". However, Houston will drop the insults once the assault phase begins.
  - Hoxton, evidently, does not reciprocate Houston's professionalism, and will continue insulting him. However, unlike in PAYDAY 2, Hoxton will occasionally refer to Houston properly without any insults.
Houston will occasionally mention his loan sharks upon picking up loose change.
- This implies that, despite gaining vast riches after the end of PAYDAY 2, Houston never repaid his loan sharks, even after earning his vast wealth and what he did during his retirement.
FBI documents found in the Dragan Files show Houston is wanted for the following crimes. The charges, locations and years given all matching up with a heist.
- Grand theft, vandalism and destruction of property on Maple Street, Washington DC, in 2013.
- Suspected voter fraud, murder and vandalism in a cargo port located in Washington DC, in 2014.
- Production & distribution of controlled substances in Silent Hill, Washington DC, in 2015.