Starbreeze has announced a partnership with Gamefam to develop a PAYDAY game on Roblox, set to launch later this year. On the surface it’s a straightforward platform expansion announcement, having a big IP coming to one of the world’s most-played gaming platforms. But when you zoom out and look at where PAYDAY has been over the last couple of years, it’s hard not to read this announcement with some raised eyebrows and confusion.
Firstly: Notoriety is Genuinely Good
Before we get into the skeptical stuff, it’s worth mentioning that this isn’t just a random trend hop onto the Roblox platform in an attempt to get more attention to the brand. PAYDAY already has a Roblox game, and it’s doing pretty good for itself! Notoriety: A PAYDAY® Experience is described as a fast-paced, first person co-op shooter that allows you to join the Notorious crew in planning and executing their next big heist. Developed by Moonstone Games under license from Starbreeze it has surpassed 437.5 million visits on the platform, with 2.2 million favorites on the game. It’s built a genuine community around the PAYDAY brand in a space where Starbreeze really didn’t have much involvement with at first.
The foundation here is legitimately strong, proving that PAYDAY works well in the Roblox Ecosystem. Players want to heist things regardless of the form, be it block based, realism based, or some other third dimensional medium. The IP simply translates into a lot of forms no questions asked.
What Starbreeze is doing now is bringing in Gamefam, a huge professional Roblox development studio with over 37 billion lifetime gameplay sessions across a 50+ game portfolio, over to build something new alongside Notoriety rather than replacing it. The whole goal here isn’t to replace Notoriety but instead give the players more to enjoy.
“Notoriety has built its own community around both the experience and the IP, and that’s a real achievement. Our primary goal is to entertain our players, and that means giving them even more ways to enjoy PAYDAY content and immerse themselves in the world of heisting. Partnering with Gamefam gives us the capability and expertise to build something new that sits perfectly alongside what Moonstone has created with Notoriety. We’re committed to being where our players are.” – Matt Dixon, Chief Growth Officer, Starbreeze Entertainment
Gamefam has worked with SEGA in the past on Sonic Speed Simulator and even Ubisoft on Brawlhalla, so it’s not like they’re rookies when it comes to adapting established IP for the platform, they know what they’re doing.
Now For The Elephant in The Room…
PAYDAY 3 did not go well. That’s not a hot take at this point. Sure, when it first came out it felt fun to play for a few minutes until issues such as server disconnects occurred, but it was never able to compete with PAYDAY 2. It’s just the painful truth even if some find enjoyment in PAYDAY 3 still. When it launched in September 2023, the servers collapsed almost immediately under the weight of the always-online requirement, making the game unplayable for many at launch.
Player counts continued to drop due to the rough launch, with player counts on steam dropping from 77,939 players on launch day to only 4,856 online at the same time a month later. By January 2024, the game struggled to even hold 1,000 players at the same time on Steam, and now in 2026 the game peaks typically at 650 players each day. Obviously steam charts aren’t the full picture due to the era of cross play we exist in, but it can give us a glimpse into how a rough launch hurt the game, and how the series was sent into a spiral from a rough launch.
Starbreeze has kept working on PAYDAY 3 and the situation has improved from the lowest point it was at, but the franchise’s reputation took a serious hit regardless, with many still using PAYDAY 3 as a punching bag. The goodwill that PAYDAY had built up over a decade working on and updating PAYDAY 2 had suddenly been tarnished, with many wanting to just move on from the game franchise entirely.
So… Is This a Good Thing or Not?
Honestly, it’s probably both at once. Firstly, the PAYDAY 3 team and the Roblox team are two completely different entities. This was confirmed by the official PAYDAY 3 X account on February 18th, 2026.
Roblox has an insane amount of daily active users, being the most played game out there in the modern era. By making PAYDAY games aimed towards the Gen Z and Alpha audiences that spend the most time on there it allows Starbreeze to build the next generation of PAYDAY fans. At the same time it feels weird, as if Starbreeze doesn’t know where to take PAYDAY next so they begin to oversaturate the gaming space with branded experiences. If the franchise’s future on PC and console is uncertain, making sure the brand is healthy and growing on other platforms is a popular thing to do, and more media out there just allow fans to have more chances for a fun ride in that universe.
The bigger question is what this new Gamefam experience is actually going to look like. Starbreeze has been deliberately vague, stating “The new Gamefam-developed experience will offer players a distinct new entry point into the PAYDAY universe.” More details have been promised to get revealed ahead of launch, but it’s a lot of trust to ask a fanbase that’s already been burned once or twice to just trust them. Gamefam’s track record is solid, and Notoriety’s success proves there’s an interest for PAYDAY on Roblox, but the announcement itself gives very little to excite one for until more information is announced.
For long-time PAYDAY fans on PC and console, this announcement probably doesn’t move the needle much, it’s not a PAYDAY 3 revival or a franchise reset, and in some cases it’s an announcement that some, if not most, older PAYDAY fans won’t even interact with. For players on Roblox’s Notoriety game already, it will be interesting to see how two PAYDAY games can coexist on the same platform without cannibalizing one another.
We’ll keep an eye on what this actually turns into, as right now it’s more of a strategy announcement instead of a game announcement, and those are a lot harder to get excited about when a franchise is already in an iffy spot.
