Starbreeze and Overkill hasn’t had the easiest few months. Following the major success of criminal enterprise and heist movie sim, Payday, both companies have failed to capture another commercial hit. The publisher made a series of business deals to try and bring in more cash flow, but these deals mostly floundered. The big blow came when the lackluster and buggy Overkill’s The Walking Dead bombed the hardest it possibly could due to a bevvy of development problems. Since then, the publisher has been shambling through mass-layoffs and budget slashing, trying to stay afloat.
Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark commented on these problems, saying that the company was going to “reconsider its future,” with an eye towards a potential revival of some older franchises getting fans excited. Even though the company had cut a major amount of their staff, the effort appears to have worked. Although it’s more than likely that a new round of investment and debt negotiations have stayed the hand that was bearing down on the studio.
Following the last tumultuous couple of years at Starbreeze, a lot people just assumed that their most-popular franchise was all but dead and buried. Of course I’m speaking about the smash-hit Payday series and its stupidly successful Payday 2 sequel. Since the launch of that title in 2013, the game has been slowly getting a slew of free and paid updates adding new content. There’s a good mix of DLC missions which add new heists to undertake. Now, with the company committing once again to a full-fledged sequel with Payday 3, work has just completed on more content for the second game. Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark said that he had “asked the Overkill crew to resume production on Payday 2” in order to deliver these updates, and they look pretty solid judging from the new trailer.
Border Crossing moves the locale of the heisting sim to Mexico, pushing a narrative and setting that seems to evoke modern perceptions of drug smuggling. The gameplay looks just as solid as ever, with plenty of run-and-gun action peppered throughout.
Border Crossing is due out on November 7th, with a free update also planned to patch some issues with the shooter. Payday 2 is out now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Watch the Border Crossing trailer below.
