Starbreeze Marks Three Years of PAYDAY 3 with the Biggest and Boldest Update in the Game’s History

Starbreeze Entertainment, the studio behind the legendary PAYDAY franchise with over 500 million players across PC, console and user-generated content platforms, released PAYDAY 3’s 3rd Anniversary Year Update, the largest update in the game’s history, marking three years since launch. The update arrives simultaneously on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store.

The 3rd Anniversary Year Update closes a year of sustained investment in PAYDAY 3 and opens the next phase of the game as a live engagement platform. It rebuilds the base package, introduces paid Crimebonds as a recurring content model, and sets a regular release rhythm the studio will carry forward.

“Three years in, PAYDAY 3 is a bigger, better and more complete game than it has ever been,” said Adolf Kristjansson, CEO of Starbreeze Entertainment. “This is the biggest update we have ever put in players’ hands, and it is built around what they have asked us for. Every heist is in the game from the moment you buy it, content arrives on a regular cadence, and there are new ways to live out the heist fantasies you want to play. PAYDAY 3 has grown steadily all year, and the moment the 3rd Anniversary Year Update went live our player base jumped three times over. Both PAYDAY 2 and PAYDAY 3 now carry large, active player bases of their own. That tells us exactly what our job is: to keep delivering content and entertainment wherever our players are, whichever PAYDAY they call home.”

A YEAR OF EXECUTION

PAYDAY 3 enters its fourth year, a different game from the one that launched in September 2023, and the change has come in the last twelve months. PAYDAY 3 has shipped a substantive update every month for the past year, with the roadmap published before the work landed rather than after.

• Content every month. Skills 2.0, the Shopping Spree heist, reworked heists with new objectives and gameplay, and free and paid packs running side by side. A steady stream of Contracts gave players fresh challenges to complete, alongside a continuous run of quality of life improvements and balancing work.
  
  
• Update 3.6, A major update in the game’s history: a new onboarding experience, an updated UI, the Heat mechanic, and Crimebonds.
  
  
• Unreal Engine 5.5, the biggest piece of technical work on PAYDAY 3 since launch, significantly upgrading the foundations the game is built on and broadening the scope of future enhancements.
  
  

THE BIGGEST UPDATE PAYDAY 3 HAS EVER DELIVERED

The 3rd Anniversary Year Update is the single largest release in PAYDAY 3’s history, and it changes both what players get and how they get it.

Every heist, in the box. Starbreeze set out to unite the PAYDAY 3 player base, and that meant every player owning the same game. All previously separate paid heist DLC is now part of the base game, at no additional cost and no change to the base price. Everyone has the full heist catalogue, and no lobby is split by who owns what.

Crimebonds. Crimebonds arrived in PAYDAY 3 in June as a free way to unlock content as you play, and that does not change. This update adds the first paid Crimebond, Brute Force, for players who want more: a self-contained, themed pack built around its own heisting fantasy, available today at $9.99. Crimebonds are evergreen, so every one of them stays in the game. Nothing is retired or taken away, and the library players can dip into only grows.

“This update is the work of a studio that has not stopped for a year,” said Jonas Skantz, Chief Studio Officer at Starbreeze. “Every month the team has put something real in players’ hands, and behind that they have rebuilt onboarding, reworked heists, overhauled the skill system and moved the whole game onto a new engine version. We set out to reach Mostly Positive on Steam, and the team got there in the summer, passing 72 percent positive. It has held since. That is their result, and we intend to push it higher.”

PAYDAY 3’s 3rd Anniversary Year Update is available now on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store. The Brute Force Crimebond is available today at $9.99.

About PAYDAY®
PAYDAY is Starbreeze’s flagship co-op heisting franchise, spanning PC and console games with a global community. It is one of the world’s most recognized co-op heisting experiences, having engaged more than 500 million players across PC, console and user-generated content platforms including Roblox and Fortnite, and generated more than $400 million in lifetime gross revenue.

With the franchise at the core of Starbreeze’s strategy, PAYDAY continues to evolve through new content and live engagement, partnerships, and licensing that expand the universe to new audiences and formats. PAYDAY is a registered trademark of Starbreeze AB (publ).

About Starbreeze Entertainment
Starbreeze is an independent developer, publisher, and distributor of video games targeting the global market. Housing the smash hit IP PAYDAY, Starbreeze develops games based on proprietary and third-party rights, both in-house and in partnership with external game developers. Starbreeze shares are listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the tickers STAR A and STAR B. For more information, please visit www.starbreeze.com