Starbreeze has said it is "thirsting for revenge" as its hunt for a Payday 3 publisher continues.

The Swedish company reported its 2020 financial results, which show a loss before tax of SEK 130.5m (£11.3m), compared to a loss of SEK 452.4m (£39.3m) in 2019.

The losses continue, but 2020 was an improved year for Starbreeze. It paid off a large proportion of its debts, and there is improvement from co-op shooter Payday 2. Starbreeze said by late December, Payday 2 had become the biggest game community on Steam, with 7.1 million members.

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Developer Starbreeze has confirmed that Payday 2's previously announced Border Crossing heist DLC - the first fruits of its renewed work on the popular multiplayer game - will launch on PC this Thursday, 7th November.

Last month, Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark announced that work would resume on Payday 2, following a difficult 12 months for the studio, despite development on the game having formally ended last December. As a result of that decision, explained Nermark, Payday 2 fans could expect"both paid and free" updates in the future.

The first of those updates, titled Silk Road, is officially described as a "free core game update". However, the bulk of the components it ushers in are, in fact, paid DLC.

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Beleaguered Swedish studio Starbreeze has announced that it will be restarting development on its popular multiplayer heist game Payday 2, despite shutting down work on the game last December to focus on other projects. It will also be creating new paid DLC, contrary to its previous announcement that all future updates would be free.

All of this comes via a candid post by Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark, who explained that the decision to resurrect Payday 2 was made "having reconsidered [the company's] future".

The studio has been engaged in a well-documented fight for survival over the 12 months, following the disastrous launch of Overkill's The Walking Dead - a failure that placed Starbreeze in dire financial straits and lead to the acrimonious exit of the studio's former boss Bo Andersson, as detailed in Eurogamer's lengthy report The fall of Starbreeze.

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Embattled Swedish video game company Starbreeze has said it will release Payday 3 in 2022-2023.

The claim comes as the company fights for survival amid a bruising reconstruction that has seen staff leave and subsidiaries sold off.

Starbreeze has been under threat ever since the disastrous launch of Overkill's The Walking Dead on Steam. The game flopped, causing severe financial issues and the acrimonious exit of boss Bo Andersson. Check out our feature, The fall of Starbreeze for more.

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If you're an Xbox Game Pass subscriber positively quivering with anticipation over what happens next, inner peace is about to be restored: Microsoft has revealed the full line-up of games coming to the service on PC and Xbox One in September.

The biggie, of course, is Gears 5, the latest instalment in Microsoft's long-running cover-shooter series. The 'of War' may be no more, but the thick necks and bug mangling are still present and correct - and Xbox One and PC Game Pass subscribers will be able to see how developer The Coalition has fared on Friday, 6th September.

Before that, however, Motion Twin's exquisite action-platform rogue-like Dead Cells joins the Game Pass library tomorrow, 5th September, on Xbox One. It's coming to PC this month too but - and you'll soon spot a theme here - there's no release date on the platform at present. Metal Gear Solid HD Edition: 2 & 3 also arrives on the 5th, but that's Xbox One only.

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Embattled Swedish studio Starbreeze has announced plans to cut 60 jobs as part of its fight to stay afloat.

The company behind the Payday franchise said it took the decision "to make the organisation more efficient and reduce costs", and "to be able to operate an efficient and profitable business long-term".

The layoffs, due to happen in November, will result in a saving of 3m SEK ( 250,000) a month. Starbreeze currently has 240 employees.

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Starbreeze has sold its Indian subsidiary to Rockstar as its battle for survival continues.

The Swedish company behind the Payday franchise sold art outsourcing subsidiary Dhruva to Rockstar for $7.9m in a deal expected to close by the end of June 2019.

Starbreeze can certainly do with the cash. It's currently amid a reconstruction in a bid to save itself from going out of business - a situation sparked by the failure of Overkill's The Walking Dead, among many other things.

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At Starbreeze's 2016 Christmas meeting, held in a cinema close by to the studio's Stockholm headquarters, CEO Bo Andersson told staff the company was in rude health. Payday 2, a co-op first-person shooter Steam hit, was still making money, virtual reality investments were about getting ahead of the game, and in-development titles, such as Raid: World War 2 and Overkill's The Walking Dead, were on course for success. Starbreeze's top brass even announced a new staff bonus system. The message was loud and clear: Starbreeze had evolved from the plucky developer of Payday into a big, important, successful entertainment company.

Just two years later, Starbreeze is on the brink of extinction. Following the disastrous release of Overkill's The Walking Dead in November, Starbreeze's board of directors unceremoniously booted Andersson out of the company. In a remarkable email obtained by Eurogamer and sent to everyone at the company the day after he was fired, Andersson even seems to lament the laziness of some of his staff - the same staff who claim they had just endured months of crunch for a project that was doomed from the start. A day later, Swedish authorities raided Starbreeze's office, arresting two people as part of an investigation into alleged insider trading. Riddled with millions of pounds of debt, Starbreeze has effectively gone into administration and is looking to sell off as many of its ill-advised virtual reality ventures as possible while it still can. The future of Payday, that old reliable cash cow, is in doubt. And for the staff who remain - those who put their blood, sweat and tears into Starbreeze games even as they endured late nights and alleged mismanagement - the threat of layoffs looms.

How did things go so badly wrong in such a short space of time? According to over a dozen current and former Starbreeze staff members, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect their careers, the writing had been on the wall for some time. But even as staff lost faith in the studio and its bosses, nobody, it seemed, thought Starbreeze's fall from grace would turn out to be quite so dramatic.

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Microsoft has announced more games coming to Xbox Game Pass in December.

Out now is Mortal Kombat X (a well-timed addition in the context of NetherRealm's recent announcement of Mortal Kombat 11). On 13th December Konami's PES 2019 hits Xbox Game Pass. And then, on 17th December, Ninja Theory's Hellblade launches on Game Pass.

Also hitting the subscription service are first-person melee combat game Shadow Warrior 2 and enchanting adventure Ori and the Blind Forest, both on 20th December. Spintires Mudrunner goes live 13th December.

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It just got a lot worse for the embattled video game company Starbreeze, which has suffered a raid on its offices by Swedish authorities.

The company behind the Payday franchise was raided Wednesday morning due to suspicion of insider trading, Swedish financial website Dagens Industri reports.

Officials from the Swedish Economic Crime Authority were seen carrying away computers from Starbreeze's central Stockholm headquarters. A person was arrested, but authorities have yet to name them. A spokesperson for the Swedish Economic Crime Authority confirmed the action in an email to Eurogamer. In a tweet, it issued the following statement (translated for Eurogamer by a native Swedish speaker):

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