Payday 3 Developer Starbreeze Studios Hit With More Layoffs

Starbreeze Studios has quietly implemented another wave of job cuts, according to LinkedIn posts from affected employees. The Stockholm-based developer hasn't released an official statement, but former staff members are publicly confirming the redundancies.

Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath, who worked in the QA department for over seven years, broke the news on Wednesday. "Today, many of us at Starbreeze, Stockholm, got sad news and I'm now seeking a new role," he wrote. His longest stint at any company, apparently. Seven years is a proper run at one place.

Senior Tech Producer Sabina af Jochnick also posted that her role was "identified as at risk of redundancy." The exact number of people affected remains unknown since Starbreeze hasn't bothered with an official announcement. Pereswetoff-Morath did mention "many of us" were let go, which doesn't exactly narrow things down.

Another Round Already?

This marks the second batch of layoffs in just three months. Back in October 2025, Starbreeze axed around 44 employees whilst simultaneously cancelling Project Baxter, their Dungeons & Dragons game. CEO Adolf Kristjansson called that decision "difficult but necessary" at the time.

The company had announced plans to grow the Payday 3 development team to roughly 50 people by the end of 2025. Whether these latest redundancies contradict those plans or if the studio is simply reshuffling deck chairs is anyone's guess.

Payday 3's Ongoing Struggles

The co-op heist shooter launched in September 2023 to widespread technical problems. Server issues plagued the always-online game from day one, with matchmaking failures frustrating players trying to, you know, play the game they'd paid for. Reviews tanked. Player counts nosedived.

Steam Charts data shows Payday 3 currently hovers around 500 concurrent players. For comparison, Payday 2 maintains a healthy 20,000+ concurrent players despite being over a decade old. That's embarrassing.

The poor performance led to a complete leadership overhaul. Former CEO Tobias Sjögren was removed in 2024. Board member Juergen Goeldner stepped in temporarily before being replaced by interim CEO Mats Juhl in May. Then in March 2025, Adolf Kristjansson took the helm.

Kristjansson, who previously worked at Electronic Arts, has been trying to right the ship by focusing exclusively on the Payday franchise. Part of that strategy included acquiring full publishing rights from Plaion in May 2025. Board member Thomas Lindgren claimed this would "accelerate our content development roadmap."

Right. About that roadmap.

The Dungeons & Dragons Casualty

In October, Starbreeze decided to bin Project Baxter entirely. The game was supposed to be "a co-op urban crawl through a reactive Dungeons & Dragons world" with a tentative 2026 release date. The cancellation triggered a write-down of approximately SEK 255 million (£22.7 million) and those 44 layoffs mentioned earlier.

Some Baxter team members were redeployed internally, whilst others were shown the door. The company framed it as "concentrating expertise where it creates the most impact." Corporate speak for "we're betting everything on Payday now."

Kristjansson explained the strategic pivot: "Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content."

The franchise has engaged over 50 million players lifetime and generated almost SEK 4 billion (£357 million) in gross revenue. Most of that from Payday 2, mind you.

Payday 2 Gets New Caretakers

Starbreeze handed Payday 2 development to Sidetrack Games in October. The new studio emerged from the Payday modding community and had previously worked on RAID: World War 2. They're focusing on stability improvements and general polish for the PC version.

This move supposedly lets Starbreeze "maintain full focus on Payday 3" whilst Payday 2 continues delivering value. Whether splitting the franchise between two studios will help or hinder remains to be seen.

The company recently launched a DLC subscription service for Payday 2, which went down about as well as you'd expect. Players criticised the pricing and approach, forcing Starbreeze to reverse course on some price increases. "We definitely didn't handle this right," they admitted.

Industry-Wide Bleeding

These layoffs are part of a broader pattern ravaging the games industry. Funcom announced job cuts just days before Starbreeze's October redundancies, despite launching "the biggest release" in their 32-year history with Dune: Awakening.

Avalanche closed its Liverpool studio in October. Microsoft cut roughly 9,000 people in July, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer claiming the gaming business had "never looked stronger." The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

Smaller studios are getting demolished too. Heart Machine laid off staff a week before launching Possessor(s). Amazon's games division collapsed after failed attempts to compete with Steam. The list goes on.

What's Next for Starbreeze?

Kristjansson wants Payday 3 to evolve into a "modern live-engagement platform" through "ongoing technology upgrades, expansion and refinement of the player experience." More corporate language that doesn't tell us much about actual plans.

The company expects to become cash-flow positive in 2026. Given their track record, that prediction feels optimistic.

Starbreeze's future hinges entirely on Payday 3 turning around. The problem? Players have already moved on. Convincing them to come back after such a disastrous launch won't be easy. Especially when Payday 2 offers a more complete, stable experience.

The studio claims it's "doubling down" on what players love. Shame they didn't start with that approach back in 2023.

For now, former employees are searching for new opportunities whilst Starbreeze scrambles to salvage Payday 3. The silence around these latest layoffs speaks volumes about the studio's current state.

Whether Starbreeze can pull off a meaningful recovery or if this is the beginning of a slow decline depends entirely on their next moves. And they're running out of do-overs.