Sydney
PD 2 Mask Paper Sydney in Payday 2. Sydney's character icon. Sydney's paper craft model.
Career information
Role	Anarchist Mask designer
Affiliation(s)	Dingos (formerly) The Payday Gang
Signature weapons
Ranged	Bootleg
Melee	Wing
Biographical information
Also known as	Kelli King
Nationality	Australian
Language(s)	English
Age	24
Physical description
Hair color	Blue/cyan (dyed) Presumably black/brown (original)
Eye color	Brown
Build	Slender
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Other
Appearance(s)	PAYDAY 2
Portrayed by	Georgia Van Cuylenburg
Voiced by	Georgia Van Cuylenburg
Quotes	Quotation page
Room	Sydney's Studio
Internal name	sydney
v·d·e

Kelli King, better known as Sydney, is an Australian Anarchist, and the 15th playable heister in PAYDAY 2. She was released on May 12, 2016. Like her predecessors Clover, Dragan, Sokol and Jiro, she was released in her own character pack, alongside the Bootleg rifle and Wing melee weapon. She is the third female heister, after Clover and Bonnie.

Background

Kelli "Sydney" King is a troublesome and belligerent youth hailing from Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria. A former member of a delinquent gang called the Dingos, Sydney has a known history of violence and anarchy, and loves to wreak havoc and beating the living daylight out of people. At one point in her past, Sydney got her hands on the Bootleg, a smuggled assault rifle that has since become her trusty companion.

Ever the thrill seeker, Sydney traveled to Washington D.C. during the summer of 2016 and sought out the infamous Payday Gang. Intercepting them during a bank robbery, Sydney appointed herself a member on the spot, though her new friends seem to like her well enough and things went on without a hitch.

During her stay with the gang, Sydney discovers a hidden artistic side of herself: designing and crafting elaborate masks for everybody.

Trivia

• Sydney is the third female heister in PAYDAY 2, after Clover and Bonnie, and the second purchasable one.
  • Sydney is also the first female heister who wears a tie with her suit, before Hila. She also has the sleeves of her jacket rolled/pushed up to her elbows like Jimmy, possibly as a nod to her punk attitude wanting to "break" normal conventions.
  • Sydney is the first suit-wearing heister to not wear some form of dress shoes, opting instead to wear combat boots, which reflects her punk style.
• Sydney wears her hair in the form of a Mohawk-esque undercut, which she dyed in a light shade of blue. Her original hair is likely black or dark brown, as seen from her eyebrows and the remnants of the side trims.
• Sydney wears fingerless gloves, similar to Sangres and Jacket, which is very counterproductive considering her profession.
  • However, judging by the aggressive nature of her perk deck, punk-like attitude and the considerable amount of information that the American and Australian police departments have on her (name, family and criminal records), it is very possible that Sydney herself wants the law to come after her by intentionally leaving traces around the crime scenes as a way of taunting them. This becomes even less of an issue if the overt notoriety of the Payday gang itself is taken into consideration.
    • Despite Sydney willing to go to great lengths in thrill-seeking, she has changed for the better and even left her criminal life behind for good as mentioned in the Offshore Payday ending.
• Sydney is purported to be mentally unhinged and violent, similar to Wolf, Jimmy and Jacket.
  • As exemplified by the playstyle of her kit, Sydney prefers "high-risk, high-reward" fast-paced violence and displays a sense of reckless abandon when confronting enemies, opting to charge up close and hose them down with her high-capacity Bootleg and gaining armor in the process.
  • Similar to Wolf and Clover, Sydney likes to point out special enemies by yelling their names out loud, though unlike the former two who are only vocal when under stress, Sydney is always shrill and talkative.
  • When playing as Jacket or Wolf in the safe house, if they talk to Sydney she will say a unique quote to them. She will state that Wolf is cute and tells Jacket that she likes his style and says they should stick together.
• Sydney is the fifth confirmed character to have tattoos, after Bonnie, Jiro, John Wick and Bodhi.
• Sydney's real name is Kelli King. While this could simply be an alias like Nathan Steele, it is unlikely due to it being used in an official FBI document.
  • "Kelli King" might be a reference to Kerry King, a guitarist from Slayer, an American thrash metal band.
• Sydney is named after the eponymous city in Australia.
  • The name choice may also have been inspired by Sid Vicious, the bass player from the 70s English punk band Sex Pistols.
• The FBI Files say that they found out her extensive criminal record from the fictional 'Melbourne Police Department' which included her days with the Dingos.
• Sydney is the second youngest heister in the PAYDAY Gang, at 24, beaten out by Joy.
• Sydney was inducted into the crew under strange circumstances. She was brought into the crew by Bain when she attempted to intercept some money from a bank job the PAYDAY Gang were committing, impressing both Bain and the crew.
  • Sometimes, when masking up, Sydney will reference this by saying "time to justify my place in this crew," or something similar.
• Upon answering a pager, she may briefly rickroll the operator by singing the lyrics to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, or hum along to the tunes of Men at Work's Down Under and pretends that she bumped the pager by accident.
  • If interacted with in the safe house, she may also sing a few lines from Anarchy in the U.K. by the Sex Pistols under her breath.
  • Also in the safehouse, she may sing the chorus from Lust for Life by Iggy Pop and Blitzkrieg Bop by Ramones.
• Sydney may also answer a pager with a more high-pitched, cheerful personality, then laugh and ask if she's good at doing other voices. It's possible that this refers to Vanille, the deuteragonist of Final Fantasy XIII, a carefree and cheerful girl that shares the same English voice actress as Sydney, Georgia Van Cuylenburg.
  • Interestingly enough, the plot of Final Fantasy XIII revolves around combatting the in-game government, and PAYDAY 2's Sydney shares many traits with this plot via anarchy, rebellion, and going against the government.
• High quality images of her tattoos are available here. Notable references include Australian Magpies, diamonds and American hundred dollar bills, a Jack Daniel's molotov, and a dingo skull. Flaming dice and poker chips likely allude to a gambling background, similar to Hoxton.
  • The tattoos include her mask, the Bootleg, Wing, several poker chips, an OVERKILL bomb, what appears to be a molotov but with a different bottle, roses, grenades, a bird, a knife, some playing cards and a LOT of bullets.
    • The OVERKILL bomb is an obvious reference to OVERKILL, the developer of the game and the bomb heists made by Lion Game Lion.
    • The Bullets are a possible reference to the Bootleg's extreme fire rate, using an tremendous amount of bullets in a small period, it could also be a reference to the high-capacity Beta-C mag that the gun has.
    • The poker chips are a possible reference the Golden Grin Casino, as the heist introduced a new kind of loose loot, poker chips.
    • The Joker Card is drawn in the style of The Joker from Batman: The Animated Series. The exact face used is taken straight from the animated movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
    • The Dingo skull is most likely a reference to her old gang, The Dingos.
• Sydney might have a crush on Wolf, as she allegedly finds him "cute" and "crazy, just like me" when spoken to in the Safe House.

• In a true feat of irony, the voice actress of Sydney, Georgia Van Cuylenburg, is a real-life activist, philanthropist, and producer as well as a major contributor to documentary videos on social and mental health issues.

Video

Sydney voice lines

All Sydney in-game Quotes.

Gallery

As depicted in-game without her mask.

Artwork of Sydney for the Most Wanted DLC bundle for Crimewave Edition, along with Rust and Jimmy.