Payday 3 is still in development, Starbreeze overcomes difficulties

Swedish studio, Starbreeze, has been a hit since the early 2000s thanks to its blockbuster Chronicles of Riddick and Syndicate. However, this studio is most famous thanks to Payday 2, the coop crime shooter. This game is still standing in the Steam Top 100 most played games despite being 8 years old.

A sequel, Payday 3, was announced in February 2017 but the studio warned at the time that the game’s release date was still a long way off. “This is our single most important brand right now and the goose that lays the golden eggs, so the team will take it very seriously,” a Starbreeze representative said at the time. “In the near future updates on the game will be rare. You can’t rush Payday 3.”

Things became more complicated the next year, when Overkill’s The Walking Dead came out disappointingly, forcing the studio to find ways to cut costs. Not long after, the company filed for restructuring to avoid bankruptcy. The studio’s CEO resigned and their office was investigated by Swedish authorities for alleged insider trading.

Overkill’s The Walking Dead was removed from Steam in 2019 following a contract dispute with Skybound Entertainment. Things got worse not long after. Starbreeze was forced to sell the publishing rights to many games, sell an entire studio to Rockstar, and cut 25% of its staff. At times, it seemed as if this studio would close.

Seemingly cornered, everything turned bright again in 2020. Efforts to re-develop Payday 2 yielded results. New CEO Mikael Nermark talks about the Payday 2 revival. He “confirms still looking to launch Payday 3 in the future and lays a stable foundation for the efforts”. Studio started looking for publisher partners for the sequel. A year on, it seems the revival is almost complete.

“The Payday brand and ‘service model’ really show potential with many successful content launches for Payday 2 this year,” interim CEO Tobias Sjögren said at last quarter’s financial report. “At the end of December” [2020], Payday 2 has become the largest gaming community on Steam, with over 7.1 million members. We raised two funding times during the year and paid off most of our debt, solidifying our financial position and enabling the successful development of Payday 3 in 2021 – everything that is putting Starbreeze back on its journey as a company industry leader”.

Starbreeze wants to continue expanding Payday 2, “not only in terms of game sales but also in gamers’ daily activities”, and continue to payday 3. They are still looking for a publisher but according to Sjögren, the company The company now “has a stable foundation to support the successful development of Payday 3.”

“We are in a confident position to strike a publishing agreement with a partner who is as passionate about games as Starbreeze and ready to launch Payday 3 successfully with us. Starbreeze is a stronger company now than it was a year ago. We are more confident, hungry for revenge and want to focus on developing the Payday brand.”

Very little is known about Payday 3 at the moment, other than that the game is still live, but Starbreeze said in October 2020 that it will be using the Unreal Engine. The studio also hinted that the game will continue the criminal journey of the silly masked people. We often wait for more information about the studio in the near future.

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