Payday Developer Cancels Its Upcoming Dungeons and Dragons Game

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A new Dungeons & Dragons project from Starbreeze Studios has been canceled. The company is choosing to focus more time and money on supporting and expanding the Payday franchise instead. Fortunately, it appears most of the developers who were working on the Dungeons & Dragons game will remain employed, as Starbreeze intends to move them onto other projects.

Creating a gaming experience that feels like a classic Dungeons & Dragons campaign has proven to be a winning strategy for game developers. We’ve seen this recently with Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3, which received numerous awards in 2023 – winning Best Game or Game of the Year more than ten times at various award shows. And just recently, Aspyr released the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights 2 in July, which critics have responded to positively.

Dungeons and Dragons Game Shut Down in Favor of Payday

Despite that potential, the developer behind the Payday franchise has announced that it will be ending development of Project Baxter, the Dungeons and Dragons project Starbreeze first announced in December 2023, less than three months after Payday 3‘s launch. According to the studio, shutting down development is a strategic move approved by the company’s board of directors and managers that is expected to save about 255 million Swedish krona, or roughly $27.1 million USD, in the third quarter of the 2025 fiscal year. It also states that some members of the development team will be reallocated to other projects in development at Starbreeze, with the Payday franchise receiving the lion’s share of the resources. There will be some terminations, however, as it goes on to state that Starbreeze will be providing support to some team members “to transition to new roles across the industry.”

So, the fantasy game project got canceled, which honestly, kinda stings, but it means Starbreeze is putting all their energy back into Payday. As the CEO, Adolf Kristjansson, explained, Payday is a big deal for them – it’s brought in over $425 million and has a huge player base of more than 50 million people worldwide! He said, “This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders,” and I get that – they want to make sure the game we love keeps getting better. It’s good to know they’re prioritizing what works and focusing on making Payday even more awesome.

Very little information about the canceled Dungeons & Dragons game was available to the public. Early reports from 2023 suggested it would have been a cooperative, ongoing live-service game, offering a “larger than life experience,” as Starbreeze described it then. Kristjansson thanked the development team and Wizards of the Coast, noting the company remains proud of their work, even though the game was ultimately not released.

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2025-10-02 17:34