LogInThe 10 employees Starbreeze quietly laid off in December were just the tip of the iceberg.
Last week, we published a story about the quiet layoff of around 10 employees at Starbreeze, the studio behind the PAYDAY franchise, a cut that the company itself confirmed to 80 Level, providing a corporate explanation about "aligning resources with all of our projects' current and future needs."
While technically correct, the studio's representative conveniently omitted that these layoffs were just a small fraction of the firings Starbreeze has been conducting behind the scenes over the past three months, and based on our findings, the situation at the studio could be much worse than they're letting on.
Starbreeze
On January 23, shortly after the aforementioned article was published, we were contacted by an anonymous individual going by the name "Anon Frog," claiming to be a former Starbreeze developer who left the studio years ago but still has ways to access its inner workings.
In their email, Frog shared a series of allegations suggesting that the studio has laid off far more developers than they admitted to us, that Project Baxter – a multiplayer adventure game based on the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, which Starbreeze is developing in partnership with Wizards of the Coast – has lost some of its team members, and that Starbreeze's Paris office is on the verge of closure. Below is the full email sent to us by the alleged ex-developer:
"Just wanna say they're lying about only 10 people getting affected. There was another layoff recently with like 10 more people fired in January, which basically halved the publishing dept. The article seems to only talk about the December layoffs. People from January have posted about it on LinkedIn. I won't link them for privacy reasons.
The ones laid off in December were working on a project. 7 out of 10 people let go in December were on Project Baxter and got made 'redundant' due to corporate BS. Some of those laid off were pretty important for the game's development, but of course, they won't mention that, cause it'd look bad to investors, and WotC too. So they just kinda sweep it under the rug and hope no one notices.
You mentioned the French studio might be up in the air. Nah, they're closing it. They want the whole Tech Team in Stockholm. As of last week, they're arguing with the French Union about it. No idea how it's going but I'd bet we'll see a bunch of former Starbreeze Tech people on LinkedIn soon."
As is always the case with "sensational insider reports" we receive, we initially chucked it to the bin, believing that there was nothing to it as Anon Frog provided no evidence whatsoever to back their claims and even refused to share their real name – understandable, perhaps, but unhelpful if they wanted to be heard.
A few hours later, however, we were also sent a link to this Reddit thread, where one of the commenters echoed the same claims – layoffs, the publishing team, the French office – which piqued my interest and prompted me to look deeper into Frog's allegations, and surprisingly, there actually turned out to be something to them.
Regarding the layoffs, after contacting several legitimate former Starbreeze developers on LinkedIn – whose identities will remain anonymous – 80 Level can now confirm that the part about more than 10 people being affected recently is accurate. According to one of the devs who agreed to provide us with some insights, 9 additional people were fired from Starbreeze in November, including some who worked on Project Baxter. This came despite Starbreeze's report in November not mentioning any layoffs, only stating that the PAYDAY 3 team would get downsized.
Another ex-developer told us that additional cuts did indeed take place in January and, most interestingly, specifically mentioned that the publishing team was affected. Since I never told this former dev that Anon Frog had written to us about the publishing team being impacted, this adds credibility to the initial scoop that sparked this miniature investigation and lends credence to Frog's claims about approximately 10 more employees getting terminated in 2025.
In total, the number of layoffs that quietly took place at Starbreeze in November, December, and January can be estimated at around 25-30 workers, with some of them being Project Baxter developers. While this may not seem like a large number, considering the studio had only 191 employees as of October 2024, it represents 13-16% of the entire workforce – a significant percentage that may affect the studio's ongoing projects.
As for the final part regarding the upcoming closure of Starbreeze Paris and the studio's intention to move the entire tech team to Stockholm, unfortunately, we were unable to either confirm or deny this.
According to the studio's official website, they are indeed seeking Gameplay Programmers based in Stockholm, while there are no job postings listed for the Paris office, however, this doesn't even qualify as circumstantial evidence, so it can't be considered proof that the French branch is about to be cranched. Presumably, the potential shutdown, along with the layoffs and the status of Project Baxter, will be officially addressed in Starbreeze's Year-End Report 2024, which is scheduled for release on February 18, 2025.
So, what are your thoughts on Starbreeze's quiet layoffs? How do you think they'll impact Project Baxter and the troubled 2023 installment of the iconic crime simulator franchise, PAYDAY 3? Share your opinions in the comments!
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