Payday developer Starbreeze announces live-service Dungeons & Dragons game
It seems that this year, there’s one thing on everyone’s minds - how in the hell did Larian Studios leap out of nowhere and drop one of the biggest games ever made??
It came as a shock to many, and given the sheer scale of Baldur's Gate 3, there was little doubt that it’d find many to connect with it. Luckily, players all over the globe got involved and proved once again that the endless fountain of excitement that pours out of the world of Dungeons & Dragons is yet to be fully tapped.
But it looks like that’s changing as more and more projects with the IP in mind get lined up - and one of those projects looks to be like a hard left turn for one studio that has never touched the property, or genre, before.
Starbreeze is working on a new D&D Game
Click to enlargeWell, that’s certainly something.
Taking a direction that truly nobody saw coming, Starbreeze, the team behind the Payday series, is working on a brand new Dungeons & Dragons game, and it’s taking a direction that no developer has attempted yet.
The company is developing a project known only as Project Baxter, a live-service multiplayer game set in the high-fantasy world of D&D. The team has said that the project will “carry the signature Starbreeze game cornerstones of co-operative multiplayer, lifetime commitment through a Games as a Service-model, community engagement and a larger than life experience.”
“When looking at prospective IPs for our future projects, Dungeons & Dragons was always at the top of our list and I’m incredibly happy to announce this license,” adds Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren. “I want to thank Wizards of the Coast for being such a great partner.”
Don't expect to play it soon
Click to enlargeIt looks like the title is in pretty early development now, as it has been revealed by the CEO that the action-adventure game is currently estimated to arrive in 2026. When during that year we can expect the game remains to be seen.
It’s a compelling turn for the company, especially after many fans failed to connect with Payday 3 (literally, those server issues were a problem for weeks). Only time will tell how the game will turn out - or if the D&D trend is likely to stick around. For Starbreeze’s sake, we hope it does.
