In the midst of a reconstruction within the company, Starbreeze Studios AB says Payday 3 will be launching somewhere in the next three to four years.
News of this came from a financial update from the company on its official site, which primarily focused on the studio’s funding as it continues to reckon with money issues in the past two years. According to Starbreeze, the company is expecting to enter a new publishing agreement in 2020, which should help fund the sequel’s development, leading into the projected release in 2022 or 2023.
The cash flows in the graph above are based on the following expected events:
- Release of PAYDAY 3 estimated to take place in 2022–2023
- Publishing agreement for PAYDAY 3 concluded* during the first half of 2020 and an initial payment installment is received, after which the continued development of the product is financed by the publishing partner
- Publishing agreement for PAYDAY: Crime War concluded* during the first half of 2020 and an initial payment installment is received, after which the continued development of the product is financed by the publishing partner.
All of this is coming as part of a major restructuring within Starbreeze, which is resulting in redistribution of assets, including IP and personnel, to two new companies simply called New Starbreeze Publishing AB and New Starbreeze Studios AB, which will handle publishing and development respectively.
Starbreeze has been dealing with financial troubles over the past few years after development of a Walking Dead shooter called Overkill: The Walking Dead, which sold poorly and eventually led to the cancellation of console ports and Skybound Entertainment bowing out of its licensing contract with the studio. After layoffs and selling of publishing rights, the studio is projecting an upward cash flow with a new publishing deal for Payday 3.
Hopefully it works out for everyone involved, Payday as a franchise has been dormant for about six years now, with Payday 2 launching back in 2013, but the franchise has sold over 9 million copies over its lifetime, so people are probably eager to see it again.
Other than Payday, Starbreeze is also well known for its development of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which also originally launched in 2013.
