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Overkill has returned to Payday 2 and will be delivering a ‘mix of paid and free’ DLC for the classic co-op heist shooter.
Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark broke the news in an announcement on the game’s official Steam page. In an explanation titled ‘Winds of Change’, he referenced the financial troubles that the publisher and its subsidiaries have suffered over the past few years. ‘If you look at a company as a well-oiled machine; every cog in the engine is more important than I. I’m just here to make sure everything’s clean, oiled, and running smoothly. My job is to create an environment where the team can focus on what’s important, the game(s),’ Nermark said. The turbulence that the company has weathered has sparked Starbreeze to change its outlook on its existing properties.
‘Having reconsidered our future, I’ve asked the Overkill crew to resume production on Payday 2. The game will have more updates going forward, both paid and free,’ Nermark announced. This choice has negated an assurance Starbreeze made about the future of Payday 2, and the CEO acknowledged this. He said the publisher thought that interest in Payday 2 would wane, even after six years of DLC updates, and the Payday 2 Ultimate Edition served as a comprehensive bundle to satisfy stalwart players and newcomers.
‘We’re breaking the Ultimate Edition promise of forever-free-content. The reasoning for this is plain and simple,’ he explained. ‘We want to move forward and make more of Payday 2, and to do so we need your support to continue producing content. New DLCs will be a mix of paid and free updates.’ In addition, the Ultimate Edition of the game will be removed in favour of the new Legacy Collection. This includes Payday 2 and all of its DLC – excluding the h3h3 pack – and will be discounted dependent upon how much of the collection players own.
Players will also have the ability to purchase DLC individually if they like, as before it was placed in a bundle. Nermark has said that the team is ‘working hard to deliver the next Payday 2 update and will present it in all its glory, starting soon.’ Regarding Payday 3, Starbreeze is targeting a release window of 2022 or 2023, as revealed in a press release on the company’s estimated earnings for the next four years.
