Payday 3 Studio hit with layoffs

Starbreeze Studios, developer Payday 3is reportedly laying off a number of its employees. Although Starbreeze itself has not made an official statement, employees working at the company have shared the news themselves, with some former Payday 3 developers were left in shock as they looked for new work.

Payday 3the latest Starbreeze game, has seen a number of issues since its launch in 2023. Payday 3 it saw mixed reviews from critics at launch and has a mixed average of reviews on Steam from players to this day. Although the studio has taken steps to try to improve the title and regain its fan base through the release of new updates and heists, it has struggled to find its footing, and the loss of these jobs may be part of the worse news for the company.

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Starbreeze Studios has been hit with layoffs again

Unfortunately, some game developers are now looking for work after being laid off by Starbreeze Studios. Starbreeze QA Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath posted on his LinkedIn account that “many” Starbreeze workers had received news that they were losing their positions, and that he was looking for a new job as he expected to be on the list of Starbreeze layoffs. Another Starbreeze developer, Senior Tech Producer Sabina af Jochnick, said her role was “identified as being at risk of redundancy” so she too will be looking for work elsewhere in anticipation of losing her position.

Starbreeze has not made an official statement regarding the layoffs, so it is not yet known how many people are losing their jobs. However, the writing may have been on the wall regarding these new terminations Payday 3 and the recent history of Starbreeze. Starbreeze laid off approximately 15% of the company between 2024 and early 2025, with further job losses following the dissolution of Starbreeze in late 2025. Dungeons and Dragons a game called Project Baxter. Financial reports in 2024 also indicated that the company had posted a loss of $18.5 million, so the problems had been there for some time.

Payday 3 struggled to regain its fan base

After announcing in 2025 that Starbreeze had acquired the publishing rights Payment 3the developer said it would help them speed up content development and “pursue broader strategic opportunities for Payday franchise.” A new heist was released shortly after on May 26, 2025 Payday 3 in the form of Party Powder, then the Delivery Charge heist DLC was added, and the game closed out 2025 with the release of the much-anticipated Skill 2.0 update.

Things seemed to be looking up for Starbreeze and Payday 3 for a while in 2025, but it didn't see a major resurgence in the player base, at least on Steam. At the time of publication of this article Payday 3 saw a 24-hour peak of just 686 concurrent players on Steam. Looking back at the update history, the release of Party Powder heist saw the number of concurrent players rise to just under 3,000, with further smaller increases around June, July and September. However, when skill update 2.0 was released, Payment 3 couldn't reach 2000 concurrent players on Steam. Compared to when the game first launched, it saw nearly 78,000 concurrent players on the platform.

While Starbreeze is struggling to deliver what players want Payment 3which has complicated matters, the developer is far from the only game studio in recent history to face layoffs, and it's unlikely to be the last. In 2025 alone, Amazon Games, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Niantic, Square Enix and many others will lay off game developers and other employees. Since 2026 has barely begun, it is likely that many similar stories will unfold throughout the year.