Starbreeze Purchasing Payday 2, Microtransactions Will be Eliminated

Starbreeze Studios is purchasing Payday 2, taking it out of the hands of 505 Studios and getting rid of the microtransactions, and also confirming Payday 3.

Starbreeze Studios, the owners of Overkill Studios, who developed the Payday games, declared today that they had repurchased the rights to the Payday series from 505 Studios, which brings the full rights of the game back into the hands of the original owners. Starbreeze has also confirmed something glorious with their purchasing Payday 2: the game’s microtransactions will be leaving.

The announcement about purchasing Payday 2 came while Overkill Studios celebrated the 100th balance update for Payday 2. Starbreeze has also said that they want to continue supporting Payday 2 for another eighteen months…as they work on Payday 3. While 505 will still get a third of Starbreeze’s revenue from Payday 3 when it comes out, they are no longer in control of the series.

Microtransactions became an unfortunate addition to Payday 2 on the orders of 505 Studios, when they announced that they would be dropping special rewards in safes that could only be opened with drills that were purchased with real money. Since Payday 2 was already profitable just from pre-orders the fan backlash from the announcement was enormous and contributed to a massive downturn in Payday 2’s sales and ratings.

Now with Starbreeze back at the helm, the microtransactions will be stripped from the game, allowing people to play how they want without having to worry about rewards. However, if you still want to give Overkill a massive pile of cash, the game’s Steam page still has over 140 dollars worth of DLC on it.

The press release about Starbreeze purchasing Payday 2 also served as the announcement to Payday 3, but Overkill has nothing else to say on the game other than it’s confirmed that the game will be coming out, and nothing beyond that.

In the meantime Payday 2 is still available to play on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. So, if you’re still wanting to play some good heists until Payday 3 comes out, you can still grab a copy and get to it.

Hunter is senior news writer at SegmentNext.com. He is a long time fan of strategy, RPG, and tabletop games. When he is not playing games, he likes to write about them.