After a rough couple of years that saw Payday studio Starbreeze flirt with bankruptcy (opens in new tab) and its chief financial officer charged and convicted of insider trading (opens in new tab), the company has finally found a publisher for the long-awaited Payday 3 (opens in new tab): Koch Media, the parent company of Deep Silver and itself a division of Embracer Group, formerly known as THQ Nordic.
It's all a bit complicated on the corporate side, but the important thing is that Payday 3 is finally more than a promise of something that will happen someday (opens in new tab).
"In addition to securing the continued development, this deal secures global publishing of Payday 3 as well as the marketing efforts through the entire game life cycle," acting Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren said. "We now have a strong foundation for a successful launch of Payday 3."
The deal goes beyond the initial release of Payday 3 to include up to 18 months of games-as-a-service support, similar to what Starbreeze has done (and continues to do) with Payday 2 (opens in new tab). Despite a blowup with fans in 2015 over the addition of microtransactions (opens in new tab) (which were eventually dropped (opens in new tab)), it's a formula that's worked well: Payday 2 was released in 2013 and over the past 30 days had an average concurrent player count in excess of 25,000 (opens in new tab).
"We are delighted to welcome Starbreeze as a new partner for our global publishing business," Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz said. "Payday 3 is shaping up to be an incredible game."
Alas, there is still much work to be done: Payday 3 won't be out until 2023.
