Swedish developer Starbreeze might be putting a large portion of its eggs in the VR basket, but the company is still making an effort to develop more traditional games. After the success of Payday: The Heist, the game’s sequel was released to a positive reception that was slightly marred by frustration with the implementation of microtransactions. But this is now a thing of the past: Starbreeze has acquired full rights to the series from publisher 505 Games, and in addition to the announcement of a third game, Payday 2 will no longer feature microtransactions.
Starbreeze’s official release on the subject primarily details the revenue split that the company will share with 505 on the console versions of Payday 2, but the announcement also made mention of a third Payday game. No release date was given, and we wouldn’t expect any more news on the project for at least another year, as Starbreeze and subsidiary developer Overkill are committed to supporting Payday 2 until the end of 2017.
This includes changing how the game’s “safe” system will work. Beginning with the next title update, all new safes — which contain special weapon skins and were previously available early to players who paid for the use of a special drill — will now be completely free. This doesn’t affect haggling on the Steam marketplace, however, as producer Almir Listo emphasizes that this is completely controlled by the players.
“Your prices, supply, and demand will still continue to shape the Payday 2 marketplace,” Listo says. “Any new-generation safe that drops will be dropping completely for free and will continue to have different rarities and qualities depending on what kind of item you get. The only difference is, now you open them for free.”
This change comes several months after public outrage following the implementation of the microtransactions — several years after the game was released- but it’s better late than never. Hopefully Overkill and Starbreeze won’t make the same mistake with the three-quel.
