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

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

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

“Baxter” was first introduced in 2023, with Starbreeze on the time stating it’d characteristic “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 might 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 had been doubtless D&D video games. On the time of writing, a single-player action game from Big Cranium set within the D&D universe—and led by Star Wars: Jedi director Stig Asmussen—stays in growth.

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