Payday 2 is ditching microtransactions

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There was a huge uproar among the Payday community last year when Overkill added microtransactions to Payday 2 in the Black Market update, despite a 2013 promise not to. Now that decision has been reversed: Overkill parent Starbreeze Studios announced today that it has acquired the full rights to the Payday franchise from publisher 505 Games, and said microtransactions will be removed from Payday 2 in the next update.

“We are freeing up the black market,” Producer Almir Listo says in the video. “Starting with the next update in Payday 2, any old-generation safes in the loot drop will stop to drop. Any new-generation safe, going forward, will drop completely for free. You will still be able to trade all the old and new generation safes and items using the Steam Marketplace. Your prices [and] supply and demand will still continue to shape the Payday 2 marketplace. Any new generation safes that drop will be dropping completely for free, and will continue to have different rarities and qualities, depending on what kind of items you get. The only difference is, now you open them for free.”

“Fuck that broke-dick piece of shit drill,” he added.

Starbreeze pledged to continue developing new content for Payday 2 for at least 18 more months, and while it was a safe assumption that it was going to happen anyway, the announcement also effectively confirms that Payday 3 is coming. The deal with 505 Games gives it a 33 percent cut of the net revenues on sales of Payday 3, capped at $40 million, after Starbreeze has fully recouped its development and marketing costs.

There's also an interesting teaser that begins around the 3:45 mark of the video featuring Dallas, Chains, and Dragan, so either sit through it, skip to it, or watch it separately here. The short version? Bikers. More will be revealed next month at E3.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.