Payday 3 studio hit by layoffs

Developer Starbreeze Studios payday 3It is reported that a number of employees are being laid off. Starbreeze itself has not released an official statement, but employees working for the company have shared the news themselves. payday 3 Developers relaxed as they looked for new work to do.

payday 3Starbreeze's latest game, , has had many problems since its 2023 release. payday 3 It received mixed reviews from critics upon release, and to this day, it maintains an average of mixed reviews from players on Steam. The studio has taken steps to improve the title and win back its fan base with new updates and steals, but it's struggling to find its footing, and the loss of these jobs could be part of more bad news for the company.

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Starbreeze Studios has been fired again.

Unfortunately, some game developers are currently looking for work after being laid off from Starbreeze Studios. Starbreeze QA Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath posted on his LinkedIn account that he had received news that “many” Starbreeze employees were losing their positions and that he was looking for a new job, expecting to be among the list of people fired from Starbreeze. Another Starbreeze developer, Senior Technical Producer at Sabina af Jochnick, shared that she will be looking for work elsewhere in anticipation of losing her position as her role has been “identified as being at risk of redundancy.”

Starbreeze hasn't made an official statement about the layoffs, so it's not yet known how many people are losing their jobs. But the writing may be on the wall regarding these new layoffs. payday 3 And take a look at Starbreeze's recent history. Starbreeze laid off about 15% of the company between 2024 and early 2025, with more jobs lost in late 2025 due to Starbreeze's cancellation. dungeons and dragons A game called Project Baxter. The company has been struggling for quite some time, with its 2024 financial report also showing a loss of $18.5 million.

Payday 3 struggled to regain its fan base.

In 2025, after Starbreeze announced it had acquired the publishing rights. payday 3The developer shared that doing so will accelerate content development and “help us pursue broader strategic opportunities for our users.” payday Franchise.” Shortly after May 26, 2025, a new heist was revealed. payday 3 Delivery Charge heist DLC was later added in the form of Party Powder, and the game closed out 2025 with the release of its long-awaited Skill 2.0 update.

Starbreeze and payday 3 It's been around for a while in 2025, but there hasn't been much of a resurgence in its player base, at least on Steam. At the time this article was published, payday 3 The maximum number of concurrent players in 24 hours on the Steam platform was only 686. Looking back at the update history, the Party Powder Heist release saw concurrent players increase to just under 3,000, with additional smaller spikes in June, July, and September. However, with the release of the 2.0 skill update, payday 3 Steam never reached 2,000 concurrent players. By comparison, when the game first launched, the platform had nearly 78,000 concurrent players.

Although Starbreeze had problems giving players what they wanted. payday 3Because this poses a complex problem, the developer isn't the only game studio to see layoffs in recent history, and it likely won't be the last. In 2025 alone, game developers and other employees at Amazon Games, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Niantic, Square Enix and many more will be laid off. With 2026 only just beginning, it's likely we'll see many similar stories throughout the year.