In what can only be described as a major triumph, Swedish video game studio/publisher Starbreeze has successfully completed its reconstruction process. The Stockholm District Court approved the company’s composition proposal in which their creditors will be paid back in five years. The embattled company began the process over year ago, and considering everything that transpired beforehand, it’s a nice surprise to see that some creditors have enough faith to help them out with their situation. Needless to say, this is a huge step forward for Starbreeze to make video games once again.
In the press release, acting CEO Mikael Nermak stated that “It has been a toilsome journey for the entire company over the past twelve months, but we are very pleased to have gained the creditors’ confidence and have succeeded in reclassifying the majority of our debts to long-term to be repaid over five years.” All of the problems that Starbreeze has gone through have been well documented, with the most serious instances being when they had their offices raided by police, and before that the failure of Overkill’s The Walking Dead.
Nermak also mentioned that the company will be looking forward to creating games again, specifically in the PayDay franchise. “We have also succeeded in positioning the company in a situation where we can look forward to the future and focus on our core business – to develop games within the PAYDAY-franchise. Together with all our employees, I look forward to reaching a publishing agreement for PAYDAY during the first half of 2020 via the ongoing dialogues we’re currently in, and to develop the game into a worthy sequel to the series together with a respected partner.”
It’s an exciting prospect to finally see a new game in the PayDay series. Starbreeze has also been saying this for a while now, and just a couple of months ago they mentioned that they would like to release PayDay 3 by 2022-2023. With the reconstruction process now out of the way, this is definitely possible. Of course they still need to work out a publishing agreement, which Nermak hopes to do by the “first half of 2020.” Having sold off most of their assets and IP’s during reconstruction, PayDay is the arguably going to be their best bet to get back into the video game market.
It’s not often that we see a company on the brink of collapse make a sudden turn around, but Starbreeze looks like they’re poised to rise from the ashes like the phoenix. They still have a long way to go, and it won’t be easy. They, along with all of their subsidiaries, have an arduous path to take, and there may be some more sacrifices along the way. Still, they’ve come this far, and if they’re able to successfully navigate their way to a new title release, then it would be one of the greatest comeback stories in gaming history.