Starbreeze has announced that it has fully acquired the publishing rights for its co-op first-person shooter Payday 3 from former publisher Plaion. According to the announcement, the company has also carried out a directed share issue of 147,676,204 class B shares that have been approximately valued at SEK 33 million. These shares have been picked up by Embracer Group, priced at SEK 0.2235 per share. The deal will come into affect on May 15.
Announcing the deal, Starbreeze board member Thomas Lindgren has commented that it allows the company to accelerate the content roadmap it had planned for the shooter. While no more concrete details about the future of Payday 3 have been revealed as of yet, we will likely see the company announce something for the game once the deal fully comes into effect next week.
“This agreement enables Starbreeze to fully acquire the publishing rights to Payday 3 from Plaion, significantly accelerate our content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole,” said Lindgren. “We appreciate Plaion’s support, which underscores their confidence in Starbreeze’ future and strengthens our strategic alignment with major global industry players.”
While a more precise timeline for future Payday 3 hasn’t been confirmed yet, the announcement does note that this also allows Starbreeze to further expand the Payday franchise with “broader business opportunities.” While what the company means by this is unknown, we might see the franchise getting shopped around for adaptations down the line.
As for how Starbreeze financed the move, the company has revealed that, of the SEK 33 million involved in the sale, SEK 29 million will be used to repay Plaion as part of a previous agreement about Payday 3. The directed share issue will also dilute the number of shares by around 9.1 percent, while the number of voting shares will be diluted by around 5.4 percent.
In an earnings report from back in February, Starbreeze had reported losses for the year. However, when it came to projections for the future, the company was quite optimistic. It pointed to a Payday 3 player base that was slowly growing thanks to the game’s inclusion as part of the games offered by subscription service PlayStation Plus.
“At this time of writing, Payday 3 is one of the games of the month on PlayStation Plus, meaning that during February, it will be available for anyone with a Plus subscription to download and play,” said the studio in its report.
“The collaboration with PlayStation will contribute positively to Payday‘s revenue in the first quarter of 2025, but most of all, it is an incredible opportunity to let millions of people try Payday 3 as it is today, after 1.5 years of hard work to improve the game both functionally and content-wise.”
Payday 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the game, check out our review from its launch back in 2023. Interestingly, the studio had said in the past that it would be reducing its investments into Payday 3.