‘Payday’ Dev Starbreeze Kills Co-Op ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Sport

After the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s been speak of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast releasing extra video games primarily based on Dungeons & Dragons. Dangerous information for followers trying ahead to that: certainly one of them, a title codenamed “Challenge Baxter,” has been absolutely canceled.

The title was in improvement over at Swedish developer Starbreeze, finest recognized for the Payday franchise and 2012’s Syndicate. In a latest announcement, CEO Adolf Kristjansson mentioned the “tough however obligatory resolution” got here because the studio is prioritizing a full revamp of its co-op heist franchise Payday. As such, “Baxter” improvement has been ended, and a few of its assigned builders will likely be “redeployed throughout Starbreeze’s tasks.” Others will likely be let go and given assist by Starbreeze to search out employment elsewhere.

“Baxter” was first introduced in 2023, with Starbreeze on the time stating it’d function “signature cornerstones” of its prior works like a live-service mannequin and cooperative play. Whereas the studio’s been quiet on it since then, the sport would’ve launched someday in 2026 for “all main platforms.” Round this time in 2024, Starbreeze confirmed off idea artwork with a tease that it could present extra within the close to future.

Dungeons & Dragons is not any stranger to live-service video games: earlier than Baldur’s Gate 3, there was a co-op-focused reboot of Dungeons & Dragons: Darkish Alliance in 2021, and its on-line servers shut down this previous February. Wizards of the Coast, which owns D&D, additionally cancelled 5 unannounced video games previous to Baldur’s launch, a few of which have been seemingly D&D video games. On the time of writing, a single-player action game from Large Cranium set within the D&D universe—and led by Star Wars: Jedi director Stig Asmussen—stays in improvement.

Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and every thing you’ll want to learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.