Payday 3 developer Starbreeze cancels offline mode and D&D co-op game

The offline mode for Payday 3 was described as "not feasible" and the D&D project cancellation has resulted in layoffs at the studio.

Last week, Payday developer Starbreeze decided to put its all into its flagship franchise, abandoning Project Baxter, a D&D co-op title that was revealed back in 2023. While this cancellation was made so more focus can be placed on Payday, it seems there's not enough of a focus to bring about an offline mode for Payday 3.

In a recent developer stream (transcribed by Wccftech), Starbreeze revealed that the offline mode for Payday 3 would not be coming. "I think we have to face the reality that it is not feasible for where we are going with the game," said general manager Jonas Skantz. "First of all, we have a finite amount of people. We want to ensure that they work on the most valuable things for the game; these are the things that we will talk about: progression, core loops and so on. But more importantly, we today have an update model where it takes us weeks to get a client update out."

While this is unfortunate for anyone who was eagerly anticipating the launch of Payday 3's offline mode, this double whammy of bad news has also resulted in layoffs for 44 Starbreeze employees who were working on Project Baxter.

It seems that Starbreeze is still in the process of recovering from an underperforming launch for Payday 3. Even years removed from the release of the game, we're seeing the studio close rank around it, focusing in on Payday to make it as good as possible once more.