Payday 3 Studio hit with layoffs

Starbreeze Studios, the developer of Monday 3lays off a number of its staff. While Starbreeze itself has not made an official statement, employees working at the company have shared the news on their own, with some ex. Monday 3 developers left scrambling as they looked for new work.

Monday 3Starbreeze's latest game, has seen a number of issues since its launch in 2023. Monday 3 saw mixed reviews from critics at launch and has a mixed review average on Steam from players to this day. While the studio has taken steps to try to improve the title and regain its fan base by releasing new updates and loot, it has struggled to find its footing, and the loss of these jobs could be part of more bad news for the company.

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Starbreeze Studios was hit with layoffs again

Unfortunately, some game developers are now looking for jobs after being laid off by Starbreeze Studios. Starbreeze QA Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath wrote on his LinkedIn account that “many” workers at Starbreeze had received news that they were losing their positions and that he was looking for new jobs, expecting him to be on the list of those being terminated at Starbreeze. Another Starbreeze developer, Senior Tech Producer Sabina af Jochnick, said her role had been “identified as being at risk of termination,” so she would also look for work elsewhere in anticipation of losing her position.

Starbreeze has not made an official statement about the layoffs, so it is not known how many people are losing their jobs yet. However, the writing may have been on the wall regarding these new layoffs, granted Monday 3 and Starbreeze's recent history. Starbreeze laid off about 15% of the company between 2024 and early 2025, followed by more job losses in late 2025 after Starbreeze was canceled Dungeons and dragons game, called Project Baxter. Financial reports in 2024 also indicated that the company had experienced a loss of $18.5 million, so it has been in trouble for quite some time.

Payday 3 struggled to regain the fanbase

After announcing in 2025 that Starbreeze had acquired the publishing rights to Monday 3the developer shared that it would help them accelerate content development and “pursue broader strategic opportunities for Payday franchise.” Shortly after May 26, 2025, a new heist was released for Monday 3 in the form of Party Powder, the Delivery Charge heist DLC was added after that, and the game closed out 2025 by releasing the long-awaited Skill 2.0 update.

It seemed like things could have gotten better for Starbreeze and Monday 3 some time in 2025, but it didn't see a major revival of the player base, at least on Steam. At the time of publication of this article, Monday 3 has seen a 24-hour peak of just 686 concurrent players on the Steam platform. Looking back at its update history, the Party Powder rice release saw simultaneous player count spike to just 3,000, with further smaller peaks around June, July and September. But when the 2.0 Skills Update was released, Monday 3 couldn't quite hit 2,000 concurrent players on Steam. Comparatively, when the game first launched, it saw nearly 78,000 concurrent players on the platform.

While Starbreeze has had trouble delivering what players want in Monday 3complicating matters, the developer is far from the only game studio in recent history to see layoffs, and it's unlikely to be the last. In 2025 alone, Amazon Games, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Niantic, Square Enix and many more laid off game developers and other staff. As 2026 has barely begun, it is likely that many similar stories will emerge throughout the year.