Media: Starbreeze reduced its staff by 13-16% over three months
Recently, it became known that in December 2024, Starbreeze conducted a small round of layoffs, letting go less than ten employees. According to 80 Level, this is just the tip of the iceberg — in recent months, the Swedish company has been actively reducing its staff.
Project Baxter
A former employee of Starbreeze contacted the 80 Level editorial team, claiming that the company laid off about another ten people in January, reducing the publishing department by half. Moreover, the creators of PAYDAY are reportedly preparing to close their Paris division. According to him, Starbreeze wants to consolidate all its technical specialists in Stockholm and is currently negotiating with the French union.
This information was partially confirmed by several other former Starbreeze employees, whom the journalists themselves reached out to on LinkedIn. The publication's sources acknowledged the January layoffs and added that dismissals also occurred in November. However, they did not confirm whether Starbreeze intends to close the Paris office.
It is speculated that over the past three months, Starbreeze has laid off a total of 25-30 individuals. Considering that as of September 31, 2024, 191 people were employed at Starbreeze, the number of those let go accounts for approximately 13-16% of the company's workforce.
According to 80 Level, a significant number of the laid-off employees were working on Project Baxter — a cooperative game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe.
Official representatives of Starbreeze have not commented on the 80 Level article.