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Payday

‘Payday’ Dev Starbreeze Kills Co-Op ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Game

by admin October 4, 2025

After the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s been talk of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast releasing more games based on Dungeons & Dragons. Bad news for fans looking forward to that: one of them, a title codenamed “Project Baxter,” has been fully canceled.

The title was in development over at Swedish developer Starbreeze, best known for the Payday franchise and 2012’s Syndicate. In a recent announcement, CEO Adolf Kristjansson said the “difficult but necessary decision” came as the studio is prioritizing a full revamp of its co-op heist franchise Payday. As such, “Baxter” development has been ended, and some of its assigned developers will be “redeployed across Starbreeze’s projects.” Others will be let go and given help by Starbreeze to find employment elsewhere.

“Baxter” was first announced in 2023, with Starbreeze at the time stating it’d feature “signature cornerstones” of its prior works like a live-service model and cooperative play. While the studio’s been quiet on it since then, the game would’ve released sometime in 2026 for “all major platforms.” Around this time in 2024, Starbreeze showed off concept art with a tease that it would show more in the near future.

Dungeons & Dragons is no stranger to live-service games: before Baldur’s Gate 3, there was a co-op-focused reboot of Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance in 2021, and its online servers shut down this past February. Wizards of the Coast, which owns D&D, also cancelled five unannounced games prior to Baldur’s release, some of which were likely D&D games. At the time of writing, a single-player action game from Giant Skull set in the D&D universe—and led by Star Wars: Jedi director Stig Asmussen—remains in development.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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October 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Payday Developer Cancels Its Dungeons & Dragons Game Project Baxter, Resulting In Layoffs

by admin October 3, 2025

Payday developer Starbreeze announced yesterday that it has ceased development of Project Baxter, its cooperative game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. The cancellation will result in layoffs at the studio.

Project Baxter was first announced in December 2023 with a 2026 launch window, and was billed as an Unreal Engine 5-developed cooperative multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons game. It was also described as a live-service game, though the extent of which was never made clear. Project Baxter was slated to launch on all major platforms and would have supported cross-play.

Although we don’t know what state Project Baxter was in for Starbreeze to abandon the game, the company states that after a strategic review, its management and the board of directors determined it would be financially healthier to divert the resources allocated to Project Baxter to “accelerate the growth” of its flagship Payday franchise.

“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” said Adolf Kristjansson, CEO of Starbreeze. “Our strategy is clear: Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”

Payday 3

Although Starbreeze states that some of the Project Baxter development team will be reassigned to other projects (mostly Payday), it plans to let go of 44 employees and contractors in an effort to “enable Starbreeze to become cash-flow positive in 2026.”

“I want to sincerely thank the Baxter team for their passion and creativity, and express appreciation to Wizards of the Coast for their support,” says Kristjansson. Though we have made the decision to not continue forward with this project, we are proud of what was achieved in Baxter, and those contributions will carry forward into Payday and the future of Starbreeze. By concentrating our efforts on Payday we give Starbreeze and all our employees the best chance to succeed.”

Starbreeze’s last release, Payday 3, was released in September 2023 in a troubled state and failed to hit sales expectations (here’s our review). This resulted in the departure of then-CEO Tobias Sjögren less than six months later. In December 2024, 15 percent of Starbreeze’s staff were laid off. Kristjansson became the new CEO in March of this year.

Project Baxter joins several high-profile cancellations this year, which include Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman, EA’s Black Panther, Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link, Xbox’s Perfect Dark and Everwild, and Avalanche’s Contraband.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Payday devs Starbreeze cancel their mystery Dungeons & Dragons game and announce plans to lay off around 44 staff

by admin October 2, 2025

Starbreeze have cancelled Project Baxter, the co-op live service Dungeons & Dragons game they announced back in 2023. Part of the development team have been transferred to other projects with Starbreeze, while the remainder get to “transition to new roles across the industry”.

Starbreeze have told us little about Project Baxter over the years, beyond characterising it as an action-adventure that reflects their “lifetime commitment” to Games-as-a-Service, and stating that it would support PC and console crossplay. They announced it with a couple of artworks – one depicting a close-cropped mage in a cape, the other some pointy roofs and pennants. The game surely would have built upon Starbreeze’s established, albeit recently eroded reputation for co-op heisting. Now, however, Starbreeze bosses have decided that doubling down on Payday is the safer route forward.

“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” comments CEO Adolf Kristjansson in a release to investors. “Our strategy is clear: Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”

Around 44 people, spanning employees and contractors, are to lose their roles at Starbreeze in the course of writing off Baxter. The press release adds that “the discontinuation of Baxter, combined with an increased focus on the Payday franchise, will enable Starbreeze to become cash-flow positive in 2026.” For context, cash-flow positive means you have more money coming in over a given period, than going out – it’s not the same as being overall profitable. Starbreeze made a huge loss in their financial year 2024 after a catastrophic launch showing for Payday 3.

Kristjansson ends the release by thanking the Baxter team and D&D license owners Wizards of the Coast, adding that work on Baxter “will carry forward into Payday and the future of Starbreeze”. Maybe they should give the laid-off Baxter team members a Special Thanks credit in Payday 4, assuming that’s next on the agenda. Best of luck to everybody affected.

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October 2, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Payday developer Starbreeze cancels Dungeons and Dragons project to focus on its flagship franchise, two years after it was announced

by admin October 2, 2025

Starbreeze has cancelled its Dungeons and Dragons project to focus on its flagship Payday franchise.

Codenamed Project Baxter, it was revealed back in 2023 and was aiming for a 2026 release. Few details were available, but it was planned to have “the signature Starbreeze game cornerstones of co-operative multiplayer, lifetime commitment through a Games as a Service-model, community engagement and a larger than life experience”.

However, following a “strategic review”, development has been discontinued as the board of directors and management have “concluded that resources are best deployed to accelerate the growth of” the Payday series.

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As a result, the studio will incur a non-cash impairment of around SEK 255m (around £20m).

“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” said Adolf Kristjansson, CEO of Starbreeze, in a press release.

“Our strategy is clear: Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”

The studio stated “part of the Baxter team will be redeployed across Starbreeze’s projects, most prominently within Payday” and where “internal opportunities are limited, Starbreeze will provide active support for affected employees to transition to new roles across the industry”. It estimates there will be a reduction in headcount of around 44 full-time employees and contractors.

Starbreeze boasted the Payday games have engaged over 50 million players globally, generating almost SEK 4bn in lifetime gross revenue.

“We are doubling down on what our players love – and what we do best – owning the heisting genre,” said Kristjansson. “Payday is more than a game – it’s a genre we created and continue to lead. By redeploying talent and capital, we can bring innovation to heisting gameplay faster, while also laying the foundation for the future expansion of the genre.”

Earlier this year, Starbreeze acquired the publishing rights to its Payday 3 game from Plaion, which launched disastrously in 2023. The acquisition would enable the studio to “significantly accelerate [its] content development roadmap, and pursue broader strategic opportunities for the Payday franchise as a whole,” said board member Thomas Lindgren at the time.

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October 2, 2025 0 comments