Starbreeze of Payday fame are at the brink of bankruptcy

Swedish game development studio and publisher Starbreeze is experiencing a major financial crisis amidst new game releases not achieving much-needed commercial success. Their latest game, Overkill’s The Walking Dead failed too meet expectations drastically which leaves Starbreeze no other choice than file for reconstruction to avert imminent bankruptcy.

Starbreeze released an official statement regards the company’s situation today, in which we also learn that the CEO Bo Andersson is leaving his position. Bo Andersson and Kristofer Arwin are further no longer active on the Starbreeze Board of Directors. A major shake-up at the top-level to restructure the company back into profitability.

The press release by Starbreeze very clearly explains to the need of corporal restructuring by pointing the finger at their newest The Walking Dead game, or rather the effects of it underachieving have to the company.

Created by Overkill, a Swedish game studio and subsidiary of Starbreeze since 2012, The Walking Dead released last month to bad critical reviews. Sitting at a meager 52 average score on Metacritic, the coop-shooter missed the mark by a lot in finally creating a worthwhile FPS in the popular zombie franchise.

The pedigree of the developer was so promising though. Overkill is responsible for the Payday duology of coop FPS goodness where players take the role of a small criminal group and partake in audacious heists. Both Payday games are well-beloved commercial successes, especially with the second game amassing over 200,000 concurrent players on the PC alone during its peak.

So, where did things go wrong then for The Walking Dead? It’s hard to say exactly but a general lack of polish and content could be very well indicative that even during the game’s development, Overkill was hurting under Starbreeze’s financial problems.

For now, Starbreeze aims to lower costs and focus on their core business. So, it looks like Payday 3 is still on the cards. With the affirmed shortfall of cash in January 2019, things are looking grim for the publisher.