Starbreeze and Krafton have announced a PUBG Payday crossover, with the latter set to infiltrate the world of the former through what sounds like a new gameplay experience within PUBG: Battlegrounds.
In an official announcement on Starbreeze's website, the studio says the crossover is about increasing "the visibility and reach of the Payday franchise", which Starbreeze aims to do by "bringing the heisting experience to a broader audience through PUBG".
It's a goal that Starbreeze rather desperately needs to chase right now, since Payday 3's in a bit of a tight spot. Recently, Payday 3 saw its director step down in the run-up to its first anniversary, and the game's poor performance also led to Starbreeze's CEO quitting back in March.
According to the aforementioned announcement, the collaboration will involve "about a quarter of Starbreeze's development organization during a year" under what Starbreeze calls a "work-for-hire agreement".
It sounds, then, like Starbreeze will be creating the Payday content that will make its way into PUBG: Battlegrounds. The two studios say they're "currently collaborating on the project's integration roadmap", and we'll get more updates later down the line.
It's been a rocky road for Payday 3, with Starbreeze admitting back in February that the game was performing at "significantly lower levels" than it wanted.
Perhaps more embarrassingly for Starbreeze, Payday 2 is currently leagues ahead of Payday 3 in the Steam player count stakes; at last count, Payday 3's 24-hour player peak was 860, while Payday 2's stood at a far more respectable 38,324.
Krafton, meanwhile, is in a very strong position when it comes to PUBG: Battlegrounds. The game's 24-hour Steam player peak is a princely 756,872, which probably goes some way towards explaining why Starbreeze wants to integrate Payday into the battle royale hit.
With regards to the two studios' future plans, Krafton is currently working on a mobile version of survival hit Palworld, and it's also overseeing a sequel to Hi-Fi Rush, the IP for which (along with developer Tango Gameworks) it bought earlier this year.
Starbreeze, meanwhile, is engaged in a multi-stage plan to try and improve Payday 3's fortunes, and the studio is also working on a multiplayer game using the Dungeons & Dragons IP.
