Starbreeze Will “Invest Significantly Lower” for Payday 3 With Year 2, Though Feels Confident in Delivering Value for Fans
While Starbreeze has been busy patching and adding new stuff to Payday 3, could we be seeing support slow down? As reported in their recent quarterly reporting, Starbreeze Studios is making some pretty big changes for Payday 3, though not the kind of changes that fans hoped for as it has left many wondering about the game’s future.
Starbreeze Feels Confident About PayDay 3’s Future, the Community? Not So Much
When Payday 3 first launched last year, it launched as a rather abysmal mess, as the always-online shooter was plagued with connectivity issues that ran for weeks, as well as tons of bugs and other issues. Long-time fans who were hoping this would be a worthy follow-up to the second game were left shocked by the state of the game, with many leaving poor Steam reviews and requesting refunds. This would eventually be reflected in the studio’s year-end report for 2023, where they noted that Payday 3’s player count and sales were “severely” underperforming to where they wanted it to be, which saw the title hitting below 100 players on Steam back in January of this year.
Despite this, the studio continued working on the title, releasing several quality-of-life improvements, bugs, performance patches, and free DLC over the following months. Though not exactly where fans want the game to be, Payday 3 is a much better game now than when it initially launched last year, and despite leaving Xbox GamePass in September, the studio says the title has had a steady active player base.
So, with that news, you would think the studio would take the opportunity to double down and continue to ride the momentum the game seems to be gaining, right? Well, not exactly, as the execs have different plans going into the game’s second year, plans that don’t exactly instill much confidence.
“During the quarter, both the third and fourth DLCs for PAYDAY 3 – “Chapter III: Houston Breakout” and “Chapter IV: Fear & Greed” were released. In conjunction with both launches, a lot of free content was also released to all players, including a new free heist. Both DLCs received a very positive reception from the player base and the game’s rating on Steam, among others, has taken significant steps upwards. The game’s MAU (monthly active players) is holding steady considering that we in September left Xbox GamePass. 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. 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.”
As one would expect, the fans aren’t exactly thrilled by this news, with a Reddit posting calling it a “wrap” on the game.
It’s gotten so out of hand that the devs needed to address what their CEO said in their quarterly report, with a stream by the devs.
Hey heisters, we’ve been reading your comments regarding our quarterly report. Almir will host a stream on Tuesday where we’ll talk about it properly and give you an opportunity to ask questions live. We believe in PAYDAY 3 and want it to succeed! Thanks heisters 😎👍
— PAYDAY 3 (@PAYDAYGame) November 15, 2024
It’s completely understandable of the community, considering how long it’s taken to get some stuff, and when things finally looked to be turning around for the best, they come out to say not only are the lowering investment on the title but by a significant amount.
How this will actually translate isn’t really known, but it certainly isn’t looking too good, at least from the community perspective. Once the devs release details on the stream, we’ll let our readers know.
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