Starbreeze’s Payday-focused future starts with a co-developed VR game

In the last decade, Sweden’s Starbreeze has very much become the Payday company. Payday 2, which launched in 2013 and has sold over 40 million units, helped the firm through its darkest days. The company bet the house on 2023’s Payday 3, with middling results: the title debuted to mixed reviews and sales and player counts that were “significantly lower than we would like“, prompting the creation of a “strike team” to turn the game’s fortunes around.

Three years later, performance has stabilised and Payday remains the company’s primary source of income (just last year, the firm cancelled its in-development Dungeons & Dragons games-as-a-service title, Project Baxter.) The franchise has over 50 million players and has generated $400 million in lifetime revenue. During Starbreeze’s 2025 financial year, Payday 3 generated SEK 76.5 million ($8.19 million) in sales while Payday 2 managed SEK 50.1 million ($5.37 million).

The company remains fully focused on the co-op crime franchise; the firm’s chief growth officer, Matt Dixon, tells GamesIndustry.biz that it is a “privilege to have such a loved IP”. “What we want to do is bring out more games in the Payday world,” he says. The first such is a surprising one: a VR release, produced in partnership with virtual reality specialist Fast Travel Games, which has worked on titles such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice and Apex Construct. Payday Aces High is launching this year for Meta Quest and SteamVR.

Both companies are based in Stockholm, and the game came about after a “casual conversation over lunch” about Starbreeze’s plans to “expand the Payday IP and open it up to external partners,” Dixon recalls.

“There was mutual respect from the start, and immediately we knew a collab would be amazing. Shortly after, ideas were flowing and a pitch got cooking. Fast Travel pitched their idea to us, and the rest is history.”

Fast Travel Games chief creative officer and co-founder Erik Odeldahl adds: “We decided very early that this would be a game starring a new group of heisters, with their own story to tell.

“It all takes place in the same world as the mainline games, and there are tons of things in the game that Payday fans will recognise, but both Fast Travel Games and Starbreeze felt that for a creative production to work best, you need room to manoeuvre.”

Adapting an established ‘flat screen’ video game franchise to VR comes with its challenges. (“So far, I haven’t been part of a game production that hasn’t had challenges,” quips Odeldahl). Mechanics that work in a regular game often do not translate well to the more immersive experience that is virtual reality.

“We’ve reworked the Quiet Mode stealth phase to better suit immersive VR play,” Odeldahl explains. “Early on, we also prioritised creating a strong progression system, because we know that enabling player experimentation with their loadouts for each unique heist will be crucial for driving replayability. Progression in Aces High means using your ill-gotten gains and in-game dollars to unlock new abilities, gadgets and guns. As a result, we designed VR-specific interactions for every item that feel intuitive and natural.”

This isn’t the first time Starbreeze has dabbled in virtual reality. There was a VR version of Payday 2 and the firm worked on 2017’s John Wick Chronicles. At one point, the company was even developing its own VR headset in association with Acer, called Project StarVR.

“What we learned from our past experiences is that the game needs to feel genuinely different to its flat screen version and has to be fully built for immersion,” Dixon explains. “It’s not just about the tech. It’s about how the game feels, how it’s designed for a 3D space, and how the loop fits the playstyle of that device.”

While virtual reality isn’t a small market, it also is not the biggest. Aces High is also a social experience that requires multiple players, which could limit the title’s commercial potential. But Odeldahl says that the social element is actually a good thing.

“While VR is still a more focused segment of the overall games market, we’ve consistently seen that social and cooperative experiences are among the strongest drivers of player engagement and retention,” he explains. “To that end, we’ve put a lot of time and energy into making sure that it is easy to find people to play with. Aces High supports full cross-platform play between Steam and Meta Quest players, and we’ve added many ways to find and connect with other online players. And at the same time, we’ve designed the game to be fully playable solo, so that the core heist experience is accessible for any player. As with any good co-op game though, the best and most fun experiences are when you play with others.”

Fast Travel’s Odeldahl also says that he is not all-too concerned about the changes regarding Meta’s metaverse priorities and the impact that that could have on the virtual reality space.

“Let’s just say that we watch the changing trends at Meta with great interest,” he says. “The VR industry has always evolved amidst shifts in platform investment and strategy, and that’s something we factor into how we plan long-term. However, we’ve consistently seen that strong, well-designed games continue to find audiences regardless of those changes. For the past ten years, our focus has been on building VR games that excite players and are easy to access across platforms. Ultimately, sustainable growth in VR will come from great content and player trust, so that’s where we’re investing our energy.”

Aces High is the first of a series of brand expansions from Starbreeze, with Dixon describing Payday as the firm’s “focus and our growth engine”.

“Starbreeze is fully focused on delivering more content to our Payday products and expanding the IP across more experiences and platforms,” he says. “It’s a huge responsibility to have an IP of this magnitude. There are millions of fans around the world ready to engage with Payday when it turns up in the right places. Payday content is continuing to grow, and we’re excited to show fans what’s coming this year.”