Swedish developer Starbreeze had to restructure (opens in new tab) following poor sales of Overkill's The Walking Dead, laying off staff and selling the publishing rights to games like System Shock 2 and Psychonauts 2. They're apparently not dead yet, however, with a blog post saying cash flow is predicted to tick up (opens in new tab), in part due to the release of the next game in the popular multiplayer bank-heist series.
"The company estimates that these cash flows will be positive, based on expected new publishing agreements in 2020 and an expected release of PAYDAY 3 in 2022–2023", as the blog post puts it. Mobile spin-off Payday: Crime War is also mentioned as a source of expected income in 2020.
It was hoped Overkill's The Walking Dead would sell millions, but it only managed to move a few hundred thousand copies. Eurogamer's article on The Fall of Starbreeze (opens in new tab) explains how this one flop brought the company low after a string of disasters like investing heavily in The Raid: World War Two (essentially a reskinned Payday), and setting up a VR company with plans to launch their own headset.
Thanks, Eurogamer (opens in new tab).
