Payday 3 sales dropped off hard in 2024, but Starbreeze has hope for the future

After its rough launch, Payday 3 hasn’t been bringing in the cash its developer might’ve hoped for, with Starbreeze reporting sales of $7.7 million in its 2024 financial year, down from $44.5 million in its launch year of 2023. To put that in perspective, the very much aged Payday 2 brought in $3.9 million in sales in FY2024—more than half of what its sequel managed despite releasing 10 years prior.

A report from Game Developer outlines the issues facing Starbreeze, drawing from its corporate fiscal reports to show the extent of Payday 3’s poor performance. The game wasn’t making corporate sales expectations in its launch year and surely didn’t reach them last year, either. The troubles led to the early 2024 departure of its CEO.

All told, Starbreeze reported a full year loss of $18.5 million in 2024.

Payday 3 did get a big remedial update last year, but user reviews are still pretty mixed. It also saw the departure of its game director last September, and a Payday 3 lead producer characterized the 2023 launch as ‘disastrous’ in an interview that made it clear the development team was still hounded by the botched release.

According to Starbreeze, things are looking up, however. They’ve got Payday collaborations with PUBG and Roblox. They’ve got it as a free game on PlayStation Plus for February—which they clearly hope will bring in some longer-term users to buy DLC.

Beyond Payday, Starbreeze is also working on a co-op Dungeons & Dragons game that they say is being playtested internally, and has gotten a positive reception from potential business partners.