Brothers Bo and Ulf Andersson had founded Grin in 1997, which had some successful titles including Bionic Commando. However, when a deal with Square Enix to make a Final Fantasy-based game fell through, Grin went bankrupt and was shut down in 2009. The Anderssons launched Overkill Software that same year after Grin gets shut down due to bankruptcy, with their first project being Payday: The Heist, released in 2011.[2]Payday was a success for PC and PlayStation 3.[3]
Overkill desired to make a sequel to Payday, but did not have extensive financial resources to complete this project. They worked a deal with another Swedish studio, Starbreeze Studios, which at the same time was running low on cash while trying to develop Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. While officially, Overkill was acquired by Starbreeze on 19 April 2012,[4] those familiar with the deal, speaking to Eurogamer stated that this was more akin to Overkill's investors, including the Andersson's Varvtre AB group, becoming the majority shareholders of Starbreeze, and the few staff and assets left with Starbreeze were incorporated into Overkill's Stockholm offices.[2] The net result gave Overkill the necessary funding to complete Payday 2, which was released in 2013, along with Starbreeze's Brothers, with publishing support from 505 Games.[2][5] Ultimately, 505 Games sold its part of the Paydayintellectual property ownership back to Starbreeze on 30 May 2016, leaving Starbreeze and Overkill full ownership of the franchise.[6] By 2013, Bo Andersson was named CEO of Starbreeze while still overseeing Overkill's operations.[citation needed]
Following the release of Payday 2, Bo and Ulf had a falling out. Ulf Andersson, the chief creative director on Payday 2, reportedly had been burned out by its development, and had not shown up to work for several months, according to those close to Overkill.[2] Bo bought out Ulf's shares of Varvtre AB,[2] and Ulf officially announced his departure from Overkill on 4 May 2015 for unstated reasons, though remained a consultant for Overkill for the next two years.[7] Ulf Andersson went on to form the 10 Chambers Collective, which is working on GTFO, a science fiction game that borrows from some of Payday's concepts.[2] The two studios do now occasionally collaborate in promotional material.
In 2014, Starbreeze announced that it had acquired the rights for The Walking Dead for Overkill to make Overkill's The Walking Dead with a planned 2016 release date. Following Payday 2, Overkill's game was planned to follow similar approaches as Payday, a four-player cooperative experience set in a persistently-changing world.[2] The game was initially developed on the Diesel engine, the same engine that had been used on several Grin titles. However, Starbreeze continued to acquire several properties over the next few years, including acquiring the under-development Valhalla game engine for around US$8.6 million in 2015.[8] Starbreeze's intent was for Valhalla, a virtual reality-ready engine, to be used for all future Overkill projects, and the development of Overkill's The Walking Dead was switched to Valhalla.[2] Valhalla proved extremely difficult for the studio to use, with developers estimating that 50 to 60% of their time was involved with trying to wrangle the engine rather than any actual game development.[2] By 2016, Starbreeze announced the game would be delayed into 2017, but by early 2017, Starbreeze and Overkill recognized they would not be able to ship this game for some time, and so decided in April 2017 to change the game's engine again from Valhalla to the Unreal Engine.[2] At this point, both Overkill and Starbreeze developers were rushing to complete the game for a 2018 release, and while the Unreal engine provided a more stable base to work from, only about 10% the developers knew the engine well enough, requiring extra time for others to come up to speed.[2] Additionally, the developers faced work under micromanagement and "crunch time" to avoid another major delay, further hampering the quality of the work.[2]Overkill's The Walking Dead was released for personal computers in November 2018, with plans for console releases to follow, but the resulting game received mixed reviews, selling an estimate 100,000 copies, far less than Starbreeze had expected. The console versions were put on hold, and in the months that followed, Bo Andersson was let go as Starbreeze's CEO and later was investigated by the Swedish Economic Crime Authority for insider trading but ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.[2]
Former Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 lead designer David Goldfarb was the lead designer and game director for Payday 2.[9] In 2014 he left Overkill to start his own studio.[10]
On 18 August 2015, sound designer and composer Simon Viklund left Overkill to focus on his solo music project. However, he continued to voice Bain in Payday 2 and produce music for Payday 2 as a freelancer until 2018. He continues to be active in the game's community, and occasionally appears in promotional material. [11][12]
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president.
Cinemaware was a video game developer and publisher. It had released several titles in the 1980s based on various film themes. The company was resurrected in 2000, before being acquired by eGames in 2005.
Starbreeze AB is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. The studios's notable games developed include The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Founded by members of the demogroup Triton, the company was merged with O3 Games in 2002 wherein the Starbreeze name was retained. The company produced titles including Enclave and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. In the early 2000s, cancellations of their projects due to conflicts with publishers and a failed acquisition led to a severe financial crisis, resulting in staff lay-offs during the development of Starbreeze's fourth game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. This game received critical acclaim and helped Starbreeze establish a reputation for producing high-quality games. The company worked on The Darkness, whose sales were considered satisfactory.
Deep Silver is an Austrian video game publisher and a division of Plaion.
505 Games S.p.A. is an Italian video game publisher based in Milan. It was founded in 2006 as a subsidiary of Milan-based Digital Bros.
Ubisoft Anvil is a game engine created by Ubisoft Montreal and used in the Assassin's Creed video game series as well as other Ubisoft games. The engine is used on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia. Ubisoft Anvil is one of the primary game engines used by Ubisoft along with Disrupt, Dunia, and Snowdrop.
Avalanche Studios Group is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm. It is a parent company that includes Avalanche Studios, Expansive Worlds, and Systemic Reaction. Founded by Linus Blomberg and Christofer Sundberg in March 2003, Avalanche Studios focuses on developing open world projects and bases them on their proprietary Apex game engine. The company is best known for developing the Just Cause game series.
Grin AB was a video game developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded by Bo and Ulf Andersson in 1997, Grin worked on numerous titles for the PC, consoles and arcade. Grin filed for bankruptcy and became defunct on August 12, 2009, and its founders went on to create Overkill Software.
Fortress is the code name of a cancelled action role-playing video game that was in development by Swedish game developer Grin. Director Ulf Andersson devised the concept for Fortress before preproduction began in the second half of 2008. During development, Square Enix approached the developer and proposed making the game a spin-off of Final Fantasy XII. Grin reconceived the game in the recurring Final Fantasy world of Ivalice, and included elements of XII, such as stylistic motifs and character designs; additional elements included chocobos and other recurring creatures from the Final Fantasy series. It was to be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
Payday: The Heist is a cooperative first-person shooter game developed by Overkill Software and published by Sony Online Entertainment. The game was released for the PlayStation 3 in North America on 18 October 2011, and in Europe on 2 November. It was released then for Windows on 20 October.
Thirty Flights of Loving is a first-person adventure video game developed by Brendon Chung under the name Blendo Games. It was published in August 2012 for Microsoft Windows, in November 2012 for OS X, and in December 2021 for Linux. The game is an indirect sequel to Gravity Bone (2008), with the same unnamed spy as the main character. It follows three people as they prepare for an alcohol heist and the aftermath of the operation.
Payday 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed by Overkill Software and published by 505 Games. The game is a sequel to 2011's Payday: The Heist. It was released in August 2013 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A remastered version of the game, subtitled Crimewave Edition, was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2015 and for the Nintendo Switch in February 2018.
Goat Simulator is an action video game developed and published by Coffee Stain Studios. It was released for Microsoft Windows in April 2014, and ports for Linux and OS X were released in June 2014. Mobile versions for Android and iOS were released in September 2014. Versions for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One were released in April 2015, and for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in August 2015; these ports were developed by Double Eleven. A Nintendo Switch version containing the game and downloadable content was released in January 2019.
Overkill's The Walking Dead is a first-person shooter developed by Overkill Software and published by Starbreeze Studios and 505 Games. The title, based on the comics of The Walking Dead, has a strong emphasis on cooperative gameplay. The game was released worldwide for Windows in November 2018. On 26 February 2019, Skybound Entertainment terminated their contract with Starbreeze Studio, leading to the discontinuation of all efforts on the game, including cancellation of efforts to bring the game to consoles. Critical reception of the game was mixed, and it was a commercial failure.
RAID: World War II is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game that lets players team up as the Raid crew and fight through events of World War II. The game was developed by Lion Game Lion and was published by Starbreeze Studios for Microsoft Windows.
Simon Viklund is a Swedish freelance video game composer, music producer, sound designer and game designer, who was first known for his work on the 2008 game Bionic Commando Rearmed, in which he was a creative director and composer. He is also known for his work on the Payday series as a composer and the voice of the character Bain.
Payday 3 is a cooperative first-person shooter game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Deep Silver. The game is a sequel to Payday 2, and is the third installment in the Payday series. It was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 21 September 2023. It received mixed reviews from critics and failed to meet the sales expectations of Embracer Group and Starbreeze.
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