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Payday 3 studio assembles 'strike team of veteran developers' to rescue the game

Starbreeze Studios knows Payday 3 hasn't delivered the way it wanted, and it has assembled a crew of longtime franchise devs dedicated to fixing it.

TJ Denzer

January 24, 2024 10:50 AM

Image via Starbreeze Studios

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Payday 3 launched in September 2023, but the game has failed to gain traction thanks to a wealth of missteps by the devs. It’s gotten to the point where much of the player base went back to the currently working Payday 2. Starbreeze Studios isn’t giving up, though. The team realizes Payday 3 is in critical condition and needs desperately to correct course. That’s why Starbreeze has reportedly assembled a new team of veteran devs that are set to work specifically on rescuing the game.

Starbreeze Studios went into details about its plans to fix Payday 3 in a recent blog post on the game’s website. In said post, Starbreeze shared that it recognizes how frustrating Payday 3 has been for players, and that it has been collecting feedback and making plans to make things right:

The assembling of a special team for this task seems like it could be a Hail Mary for Starbreeze Studios, but it’s also arguably warranted. Payday 3 has under 500 players right now on Steam, according to SteamDB. Meanwhile, Payday 2 is enjoying a player count of over 21,000 as of this writing. It doesn’t help that even the major patches that have been promised to fix Payday 3 have seen delays, one of which included backend bug that threatened to ruin player progression.

Even so, when we reviewed Payday 3 back in 2023, we pointed out that it still has the potential to turn things around if Starbreeze finds its footing. This move seems like the definitive effort to do just that, and it will be interesting to see if it pays off. Stay tuned for further Payday 3 updates and coverage here at Shacknews.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.