Payday Crime War Will Return With New Developer

Payday's mobile game, Crime War, is coming back thanks to a new deal between Starbreeze and PopReach Corporation. Under the terms of the deal, Starbreeze is getting $250,000 USD, with PopReach receiving the "complete source code" for the game and more to re-launch it.

Crime War was originally developed by Cmune, with assistance from Starbreeze, but the game was decommissioned in 2019. It was closed down after then-publisher NBCUniversal shut down its game publishing business that year.

PopReach will also receive access to Payday 2 content and it will cover "all costs for continued development, marketing, live operations, and user acquisition" for the game. When Crime War re-launches, Starbreeze will get "tiered royalties" on sales of the game, while Starbreeze also stressed that it continues to own the IP rights to Crime War.

A soft launch for Crime War's beta is scheduled to begin by the end of 2021.

"We believe that Payday Crime War has the potential to generate substantial revenue for PopReach, given the longstanding success of the franchise, and the fact that it will be the first mobile free-to-play Payday game," PopReach's Jon Walsh said.

The five people at Starbreeze who were working on Crime War at the company's office in Barcelona are now moving on to the Payday 3 team, Starbreeze said.

Crime War is a 4v4 shooter where teams of police and thieves do battle. It remains to be seen how Crime War might change from the last time we saw it in its beta form.

In other Payday news, Starbreeze recently announced Payday 3 for 2023. The company also signed a massive deal with Koch Media for the game, and you can read GameSpot's interview with CEO Tobias Sjögren to learn more about the deal and what it means.