After a rough couple of years that saw Payday studio Starbreeze flirt with bankruptcy and its chief financial officer charged and convicted of insider trading, the company has finally found a publisher for the long-awaited Payday 3: Koch Media, the parent company of Deep Silver and itself a division of Embracer Group, formerly known as THQ Nordic.
It’s all a bit complicated on the corporate side, but the important thing is that Payday 3 is finally more than a promise of something that will happen someday.
“In addition to securing the continued development, this deal secures global publishing of Payday 3 as well as the marketing efforts through the entire game life cycle,” acting Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren said. “We now have a strong foundation for a successful launch of Payday 3.”
The deal goes beyond the initial release of Payday 3 to include up to 18 months of games-as-a-service support, similar to what Starbreeze has done (and continues to do) with Payday 2. Despite a blowup with fans in 2015 over the addition of microtransactions (which were eventually dropped), it’s a formula that’s worked well: Payday 2 was released in 2013 and over the past 30 days had an average concurrent player count in excess of 25,000.
“We are delighted to welcome Starbreeze as a new partner for our global publishing business,” Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz said. “Payday 3 is shaping up to be an incredible game.”
Alas, there is still much work to be done: Payday 3 won’t be out until 2023.