Starbreeze Cancels D&D Game, Cuts Staff to Save Payday 3

Last Updated: November 3, 2025

In a decisive and painful move to secure its future, Starbreeze Entertainment has officially cancelled its highly anticipated Dungeons & Dragons game, codenamed 'Project Baxter'. The announcement, made on October 2, 2025, confirmed the company is refocusing all its resources on its core intellectual property, Payday.

This strategic pivot, a direct response to the troubled launch and ongoing struggles of Payday 3, has resulted in the layoff of 44 employees.

A Necessary Pivot After a Troubled Launch

Starbreeze is making a hard course correction, one born from necessity. The Swedish developer is abandoning its ambitious licensed D&D title to concentrate entirely on its signature cooperative heist franchise. This decision is inextricably linked to the disastrous launch of Payday 3 in September 2023, which was plagued by severe server issues, matchmaking failures, and a lack of content that alienated its dedicated player base.

The company's new strategy is a direct attempt to salvage the long-term viability of its most valuable asset. In a statement, Starbreeze CEO Juergen Goeldner addressed the difficult choice: "Our vision is to build a bigger and broader Payday universe. To do that, we must focus on what we do best: creating phenomenal cooperative multiplayer games within our own franchises. This is a tough, but necessary, decision to ensure we can win back player trust and deliver the experience our community deserves for Payday 3."

This move signals an end to the studio's work on licensed IPs for the foreseeable future, shifting all internal development capacity to the Payday franchise and a second, unannounced proprietary game.

The End of a Promising Adventure

While few concrete details about Project Baxter were ever made public, its cancellation is a significant loss for fans of Dungeons & Dragons. The game was being developed in Unreal Engine 5 and was set to be published by Wizards of the Coast. Given Starbreeze's expertise in crafting tense co-op action, the prospect of a D&D heist or adventure game from the studio was highly anticipated.

The project was still in its pre-production phase, but its termination closes the book on what could have been a unique entry in the D&D video game library, which has seen several projects cancelled over the years. Concept art hinted at a dark, atmospheric world, leaving fans to wonder what kind of adventures might have been. The cancellation highlights the volatility of the AAA development space, where even powerful licenses like Dungeons & Dragons are not immune to the strategic needs of a struggling studio.

The Human Cost of Course Correction

Unfortunately, this strategic realignment comes with a significant human cost. Starbreeze confirmed that the discontinuation of Project Baxter and the broader restructuring will result in 44 employees being laid off. This number is higher than initial internal estimates and adds Starbreeze to the long list of development studios that have undergone painful staff reductions in recent years.

The company has stated it is providing support to all affected employees during this transition. "Parting with talented colleagues is never easy," Goeldner's statement continued. "We are committed to supporting our employees through this process. This restructuring is crucial for our future, allowing us to build a more sustainable and focused studio." The layoffs are a stark reminder of the instability within the games industry, where project cancellations have immediate and profound consequences for its creators.

Starbreeze's Future is All-In on Payday

With Project Baxter shelved, Starbreeze is betting its entire future on the revival of Payday 3 and the expansion of the franchise. The studio's full attention is now on rectifying the game's initial failings, delivering a more aggressive post-launch content roadmap, and ultimately regaining the goodwill of its community.

The singular focus on Payday could be the lifeline the series needs. Fans can now expect the studio's undivided effort in fixing persistent bugs, improving the online infrastructure, and rolling out the updates and new heists that were promised. By making this difficult sacrifice, Starbreeze has made a clear, unambiguous statement: its survival depends entirely on making Payday 3 the success it was always meant to be.