Starbreeze is giving Payday 3 a regime change ahead of its one-year anniversary. The studio recently announced game director Miodrag Kovačević will no longer lead Year 2 of its live-service crime game.
According to Starbreeze, Kovačević will “step away from his role…and refocus his efforts as a designer elsewhere in the project.”
While the studio looks for someone to take on long-term director duties, Payday 3’s “creative force” will be run in the interim by lead producer Andreas Penninger and global brand director Almir Listo.
As Listo noted, he and Penninger have both been at Starbreeze for 12 years, and came into the franchise with Payday 2. Speaking to the future, he said he was “thrilled about the upcoming content we are preparing for you all!”
The tumultuous, ongoing Payday 3 saga
Payday 3 launched in mid-September last year, and has struggled since then. At first, it faced simple launch issues, and the game opened to 1.3 million overall players overall despite that.
Months later, Starbreeze confessed that the game massively underperformed. Things were so dire, it resulted in CEO Tobias Sjögren being ousted from the company he once helped revitalize in March.
This past May, the studio launched Operation Medic Bag, which added in new features and aimed to revamp the game. Currently, Starbreeze has been quiet on what, or how, Year 2 will try to improve Payday 3’s prospects.
