UPD: Starbreeze has confirmed to 80 Level that the layoffs did take place, affecting no more than 10 people who, according to the studio, were not assigned to any specific projects, suggesting that the layoffs are unlikely to affect the games the company currently has in the works.We can confirm that we did a number of reductions in December involving fewer than 10 roles in total, as part of our regular efforts of aligning resources with all of our projects current and future needs, a Starbreeze representative told us. As such, they were not tied to any specific project.Original article: It seems like the consequences of Payday 3, the ill-fated 2023 installment of the iconic crime simulator franchise, continue to haunt its developer Starbreeze Studios to this day, with the company quietly firing a number of developers in December 2024 a move that has only recently come to public attention.StarbreezeAccording to a LinkedIn post shared by Starbreezes former Creative Director, Tancred Dyke-Wells, several employees, including Dyke-Wells himself, were laid off last December. The post mentioned that the cuts affected the companys UK and Sweden offices, leaving the fate of the Barcelona and Paris branches up in the air.In November 2024, Starbreeze had reported having around 200 developers, and with that number still listed on their website and no public announcements about the layoffs on their social media or the websites News section, its unclear how many of the studios employees had their Christmas ruined last year. It is also unknown how the layoffs might affect Project Baxter, a cooperative multiplayer adventure game based on the Dungeons & Dragons franchise that Starbreeze is developing in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast.Although Dyke-Wells didnt explicitly state the reason for the terminations, its reasonable to assume that the failure of Payday 3 played a significant role. Since its launch, the game has been plagued with problems, earning it the label of disastrous from Starbreezes Lead Producer Andreas Penniger and even resulting in the dismissal of the studios CEO, Tobias Sjgren.In November, it was reported that Starbreeze had reduced the size of the team working on Payday 3, with no mention of layoffs, however, as we now see, the cuts did indeed come just a month later. As it stands, Payday 3 is among the AAA titles that have failed both commercially and critically, bringing in far less revenue than its creators expected and earning a less-than-stellar 3.2/10 rating, with daily player counts hovering around a mere thousand or fewer.For comparison, Payday 2 continues to attract tens of thousands of players daily, sitting at an impressive 31,000 at the time of writing despite turning 12 years old this year.80 Level has reached out to Starbreeze for confirmation and will provide an update if a response is received.Dont forget to join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Payday Developer Starbreeze Quietly Fired a Number of Developers in December appeared first on CG SHARES.