"We're certainly a very different company compared to what it was before the reconstruction. I'm getting in when we're on the upwards spiral, and it's fantastic." He adds: "I can't imagine how difficult it was for my predecessor handling this and I'm very grateful for all the work people who have been at Starbreeze over the last couple of years have put in. Anyone could, and from my understanding, that's what happened to Starbreeze." "If you spread yourself too thin, if you're taking on projects that are too ambitious, you might end up in problems. "Whatever company you're running, you need to make sure you're able to focus on the stuff you set out to do," he says. He admits he had not been following Starbreeze's decline closely prior to joining, but believes he understands where previous management ran into trouble. Instead, he wanted to take the opportunity to help a notable Swedish games firm get back on its feet. When Sjögren joined Starbreeze's board of directors in mid-2019 - around halfway through reconstruction - taking over the company "was certainly not in books," he says. The company searched for a replacement, with Sjögren taking on Nermark's duties on an interim basis before he was offered the permanent role back in March. 'New' is perhaps not quite the right term to describe Sjögren position at the head of the once-beleaguered company - he has, in fact, been in the role since October 2020 when Mikael Nermark left for personal reasons. So we've come from a quite terrible place to this point now where the company is newly focused on the Payday IP and creating games again. "That means we can keep running this business as is, with the cashflow and the money we have in the bank. "We're now what's called a 'going concern'," he tells. Understandably, new CEO Tobias Sjögren is feeling optimistic about the company's prospects. Starbreeze was granted a period of reconstruction - a measure in Sweden to give businesses the chance to course correct and ensure they are on the path to recovery - and after multiple extensions, it emerged in December 2019 with a plan to pay off its debts and promises of a new Payday on the horizon.īy the end of 2020, the studio had paid off most of its creditors and in March it secured a €50 million publishing deal for Payday 3 with Koch Media. Only time will tell what is in store, but it certainly could be big.Like many a Payday 2 player, Starbreeze Studios has made an impressive escape - not from virtual law enforcement as part of a video game heist, but from one of the lowest financial positions a business can be in without collapsing completely.įollowing the poor performance of Overkill's The Walking Dead, a title the Swedish developer had invested heavily in, the company found itself facing insolvency by the end of 2018. Payday turns 10 this year, and so we could potentially more snippets of information from other E3 events, Gamescom and other random information as Koch Medias’ new Prime Matter Label looks to take off. On another note, this year marks 10 years of the Payday franchise, and Payday 3 is only just the beginning of the franchise.
It could mean that there are going to be more characters join in on the story, perhaps even more of a storyline within the game. The wider criminal underworld of Payday lives its own life where movers and shakers want a piece of the action or a piece of the Payday Gang.” In the lore, they are dominant in the underground crime world with the underworld going their own way or joining the gang become some sort of prestige.Įrik Wonnevi, Game Director of Payday said: “In their exploits, the Gang has become, as they call it, the tightest crew ever.
The setting for the third game seems to elevate the gang to a new level of notoriety, with the dev describing them as the tightest gang ever. One developer during the broadcast spoke about the lore of Payday 3 in some detail. The Swedish Developer’s website also mentions the game is still in the design phase, which appears to be true based on the revelations during the Koch stream. As it stands, the Starbreeze website indicated that the actually Payday 3 release window is still scheduled for 2022-2023. While the release of Payday 3 is years away, the news isn’t that devastating to hear.
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