Owing to the lack of any official announcement from Starbreeze itself, it is currently unknown how many employees have been affected by this round of lay-offs, aside from Pereswetoff-Morath referring to the number as “many of us”.

“Today, many of us at Starbreeze, Stockholm, got sad news, and I’m now seeking a new role and would appreciate your support,” wrote Pereswetoff-Morath on LinkedIn. “If you hear of any opportunities or just want to catch up, please send me a message or comment below. I’d love to reconnect. That may be quite template-y, but it’s still true. After over 7 years, the longest I’ve ever been at any company in any industry, my time has (more than likely) come.”

af Jochnick noted, these lay-offs were recent, with her own role in the company “at risk of redundancy.” “Due to the recent layoffs at Starbreeze, my role has been identified as at risk of redundancy, so I’m beginning to look at what’s next,” she wrote.

The studio behind Payday 3 has seen several issues, especially since the co-op shooter’s release and poor reception. Back in May 2025, it had announced that it had fully acquired the publishing rights for the game from former publisher Plaion. At the time, Starbreeze board member Thomas Lindgren had said that this transaction would enable the studio to accelerate its planned content roadmap.

“This agreement enables Starbreeze to fully acquire the publishing rights to Payday 3 from Plaion, significantly accelerate our content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole,” said Lindgren. “We appreciate Plaion’s support, which underscores their confidence in Starbreeze’s future and strengthens our strategic alignment with major global industry players.”

In October, however, general manager Jonas Skantz and community manager Elisabeth Elvestad had announced that the studio had stopped working on an offline mode for Payday 3. They referred to the feature as “not feasible” due to the size of the team and its priorities on more important things.

In October, Starbreeze had also announced that it had handed over development of Payday 2 to Sidetrack Games, who will continue to support its PC version. The latter studio emerged from the modding community for Payday titles, with its employees having worked on games like RAID: World War 2. Since the hand-off, the developers’ main focus has been on stability and general improvements for Payday 2.

Thanks to its attention no longer being split between two games, Starbreeze has also noted that it intends to “maintain full focus on Payday 3, while Payday 2 continues to deliver value for all players with the dedicated expert support they deserve.”

Payday 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our thoughts on the fall of Payday 3 for more details.

The studio originated out of the modding community for the Payday games, and have previously worked on titles like RAID: World War 2. Starbreeze Studios has praised Sidetrack Games’ ability to offer post-launch support for titles over a long period of time, as well as the fact that the team is already familiar with the engine powering Payday 2.

“Sidetrack (formerly known as the M.U.G. Team) is a talented team with deep roots in the Payday modding community,” said Starbreeze in its announcement. “Their work on RAID: World War II showed that they have the skill and perseverance to deliver quality updates over a long time. They know the Payday 2 engine inside and out, and they’ve already gotten started.”

The first update as part of this hand-off is slated for release on October 23, and will focus on stability and general improvements for Payday 2. More precise details about the update will likely become more available as part of a larger set of patch notes alongside the update itself.

As a result of this move, Starbreeze Studios has stated that it intends to “maintain full focus on Payday 3, while Payday 2 continues to deliver value for all players with the dedicated expert support they deserve.”

The announcement comes a few months after Starbreeze Studios announced that it had fully acquired the publishing rights for Payday 3 from Plaion. According to its announcement from back in May, the transaction involved a directed share issue of over 147 million of its class be shares valued at SEK 33 million, which in turn were picked up by Embracer Group for SEK 0.2235 per share. The studio had said at the time that its acquisition of the publishing rights for Payday 3 would allow it more freedom to accelerate its development roadmap for the title.

“This agreement enables Starbreeze to fully acquire the publishing rights to Payday 3 from Plaion, significantly accelerate our content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole,” said studio board member Thomas Lindgren. “We appreciate Plaion’s support, which underscores their confidence in Starbreeze’ future and strengthens our strategic alignment with major global industry players.”

More recently, Starbreeze Studios had also announced that it was halting development of the much-requested offline mode for Payday 3, with community manager Elisabeth Elvestad and general manager Jonas Skantz referring to the feature as “not feasible”.

“So, offline mode. Let’s talk about that,” they said in a livestream. “I know that the team had good intentions with that, definitely. And they have been trying to make it happen, but I think we have to face the reality that it is not feasible for where we are going with the game.”

Payday 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our thoughts on the fall of Payday 3.

However, that doesn’t mean Payday 3 will be receiving one of its most-requested features: Offline mode. General manager Jonas Skantz and community manager Elisabeth Elvestad addressed this in a recent stream (transcription via WCCF Tech), with the former confirming that it’s “not feasible.”

“So, offline mode. Let’s talk about that. I know that the team had good intentions with that, definitely. And they have been trying to make it happen, but I think we have to face the reality that it is not feasible for where we are going with the game.

“I’ll explain what I mean. First of all, we have a finite number of people. We want to ensure that they work on the most valuable things for the game; these are the things that we will talk about: progression, core loops and so on. More importantly, we have an updated model where it takes us weeks to get a client update out. This is a bit technical; it means that if we discover today that, ‘hey, this value is wrong,’ it takes us a very long time to fix that. That’s not because we are slow, it’s just because updating the first-party and so on takes weeks.”

The part about having a “finite number of people” is odd, considering the recent lay-offs. However, the team ultimately wants to move to a model where it can “work with the community and make sure that we can update things fast, and to do that, we need to update things from the backend. We need to be able to tweak the game from the backend to ensure we can get things out faster.

“If we can get at things more early, and have the confidence that we can change it, then that would give us much more speed. It would also bring more meaning to player feedback. That doesn’t mean that we are not doing things to improve online, but that’s what makes it not feasible to do.”

While this is all well and good, Payday 3 continues to struggle in play numbers compared to its predecessor. Its recent 24-hour peak on Steam is a measly 2,123 concurrent players, while Payday 2 hit 29,702 concurrent players. And that’s with the latter suffering its own controversies with the Infamous Collection seeing a price increase and a new subscription service for all DLC.

Announcing the deal, Starbreeze board member Thomas Lindgren has commented that it allows the company to accelerate the content roadmap it had planned for the shooter. While no more concrete details about the future of Payday 3 have been revealed as of yet, we will likely see the company announce something for the game once the deal fully comes into effect next week.

“This agreement enables Starbreeze to fully acquire the publishing rights to Payday 3 from Plaion, significantly accelerate our content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole,” said Lindgren. “We appreciate Plaion’s support, which underscores their confidence in Starbreeze’ future and strengthens our strategic alignment with major global industry players.”

While a more precise timeline for future Payday 3 hasn’t been confirmed yet, the announcement does note that this also allows Starbreeze to further expand the Payday franchise with “broader business opportunities.” While what the company means by this is unknown, we might see the franchise getting shopped around for adaptations down the line.

As for how Starbreeze financed the move, the company has revealed that, of the SEK 33 million involved in the sale, SEK 29 million will be used to repay Plaion as part of a previous agreement about Payday 3. The directed share issue will also dilute the number of shares by around 9.1 percent, while the number of voting shares will be diluted by around 5.4 percent.

In an earnings report from back in February, Starbreeze had reported losses for the year. However, when it came to projections for the future, the company was quite optimistic. It pointed to a Payday 3 player base that was slowly growing thanks to the game’s inclusion as part of the games offered by subscription service PlayStation Plus.

“At this time of writing, Payday 3 is one of the games of the month on PlayStation Plus, meaning that during February, it will be available for anyone with a Plus subscription to download and play,” said the studio in its report.

“The collaboration with PlayStation will contribute positively to Payday‘s revenue in the first quarter of 2025, but most of all, it is an incredible opportunity to let millions of people try Payday 3 as it is today, after 1.5 years of hard work to improve the game both functionally and content-wise.”

Payday 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the game, check out our review from its launch back in 2023. Interestingly, the studio had said in the past that it would be reducing its investments into Payday 3.

It also pointed to the title being available through PlayStation Plus as an example for how the studio will try growing its player base, referring to the move as “an incredible opportunity”.

“At this time of writing, Payday 3 is one of the games of the month on PlayStation Plus, meaning that during February, it will be available for anyone with a Plus subscription to download and play,” said the studio in its report.

“The collaboration with PlayStation will contribute positively to Payday‘s revenue in the first quarter of 2025, but most of all, it is an incredible opportunity to let millions of people try Payday 3 as it is today, after 1.5 years of hard work to improve the game both functionally and content-wise.”

Starbreeze is also working on collaboration events with titles like PUBG: Battlegrounds and Roblox to develop some sort of Payday-styled experiences in the games.

The company reported annual net sales of SEK 185.9 million (around $17.3 million), down from the SEK 633.5 million ($59.1 million) reported last year. Payday 3 contributed SEK 82.9 million (around $7.7 million) to this throughout the year (compared to the SEK 477 million / $44.5 million from last year), while Payday 2 accounted for SEK 41.8 million ($3.9 million), down from the SEK 139.1 / $13 million from last year. Sales going down resulted in a loss of SEK 199.1 million (around $18.5 million) for the year.

Acting CEO Mats Juhl said that the future of Payday, along with other in-development games like the Dungeons & Dragons game internally titled Project Baxter, will lead Starbreeze to a more successful year. He also emphasises Starbreeze’s third-party publishing efforts for growth in the coming year.

“We have continued to strengthen the Payday brand through collaborations and enhancements while making great progress with Project Baxter and establishing a strong foundation for our third-party publishing,” said Juhl.

“With a balanced risk profile, strong cash position and several ongoing projects approaching important milestones, we look forward to 2025. Our vision to be a leading multi-title studio is more realistic than ever, and we are well positioned to continue building value for our players and owners.”

Interestingly, Starbreeze revealed in a statement from its quarterly earnings report back in November 2024 that it would focus on more player engagement for Payday 3 while also lowering its investments into the co-op shooter.

“The level of investment during Payday 3’s first year on the market, both through launched DLCs and Operation Medic Bag, has been at an elevated level,” said the company at the time. “Ahead of year two, we are confident in being able to continue delivering amounts of value to our players with a significantly lower level of investment.”

Payday 3 was released all the way back in 2023, and is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review from back when the title first launched.

Payday 3 is playable only on PS5 and offers co-op heist-focused shooting. While it had an awful launch, Overkill Software has since released numerous updates, quality-of-life changes and content. Granted, it’s still not at the level of Payday 2, but it could satisfy longtime fans who want to try something new.

High on Life and Pac-Man World Re-Pac are playable on PS4 and PS5. The former is a first-person shooter from Squanch Games with Rick and Morty-esque humor as players battle an alien cartel to save humanity. The latter is a remake of 2004’s Pac-Man World, a 3D platformer unlike its arcade brethren (though the original classic is unlockable).

All three titles will be available until March 3rd. Check out this month’s offerings here, including Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

In its recently published quarterly fiscal report, the developer has announced its plans to “significantly” decrease investment in Payday 3 and its post-launch plans, which doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the game’s future.

“The level of investment during Payday 3’s first year on the market, both through launched DLCs and Operation Medic Bag, has been at an elevated level,” Starbreeze says. “Ahead of year two, we are confident in being able to continue delivering amounts of value to our players with a significantly lower level of investment.”

Payday 3 has failed to maintain a healthy player base since its release, so Starbreeze’s decision to pull back support for the shooter doesn’t come as a complete surprise, though it should be interesting to see what this means for the studio’s long-term plans for the game, and for the Payday franchise in general.

Payday 3 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Payday 3 Year 1 Edition includes four DLC packs – Fear and Greed, Boys in Blue, Houston Breakout, and Syntax Error. Each contains a heist, weapon pack, and tailor pack. You also get five “Compensation Packs”, which include cosmetics and weapons, and even more cosmetics as bonus content.

If you own the Gold or Collector’s Editions, then the Year 1 Edition is a free upgrade. Base game and Silver Edition owners must purchase the Year 1 Pass.

Payday 3 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out our review of the launch version here. It received significant backlash at launch and after for its always-online requirements, technical issues, and changes. However, Starbreeze has released multiple updates to address the same, including Solo mode.

Alongside the heist, DLC owners receive a Tailor Pack containing four suits, masks and gloves and a Weapon Pack with the Adelig RG5, ATK-7 and Bullkick 500 with 29 mods. The free update includes the Solo Mode Beta, allowing players to skip matchmaking and heist alone, with a proper offline mode arriving later this year.

Rochelle Maloney, aka Clover (who debuted in DLC for the first Payday), is also available as a new playable character alongside the LMG as a new primary weapon and three new masks. Players can also rename their loadouts and take advantage of Nvidia DLSS 3.0.

Payday 3 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC, launching last year to much backlash. However, Starbreeze has been addressing its many issues with free updates – head here for more details.

Solo Mode essentially forgoes the matchmaking step, with parts of the game now running on the player’s platform instead of through the developer’s servers. As such, you’ll still need to be online to access the mode and update your progress accordingly.

As head of community and global brand director Almir Listo noted (transcription via IGN), the Solo Mode Beta is not “our full vision for this feature. For now, we’re setting it as a beta to see how it runs. We expect the performance to be affected since the parts normally frontloaded by our servers will now have to be run on your own hardware.” For now, the development, the developer wants to “test that the features that went into this work properly.”

The upcoming update also features a new playable character in Clover, two new weapons, three Masks, 12 Flag Sticks, and a Charm to play around with. It also adds support for Nvidia DLSS 3.0 and loadout renaming. Stay tuned for more details when the Boys in Blue update arrives tomorrow.