traded as first north star industry computer and video games founded 1998 as o3 games 2002 as starbreeze studios founders magnus h gdahl headquarters stockholm sweden key people bo andersson klint ceo products video game revenue 180 msek 2013 2014 net income 110 msek 2013 2014 number of employees 50 2013 2014 subsidiaries overkill software website starbreeze.com starbreeze studios is a video game development studio and publisher based in stockholm sweden . 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 but the name starbreeze 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 a good licensed game . the company worked on the darkness whose sales were considered satisfactory . starbreeze partnered with electronic arts to develop a reboot to the syndicate series but it ended up being a commercial failure and many staff members moved to rival company machinegames established by starbreeze s founders . as a result the company shifted part of its focus on developing smaller games such as brothers a tale of two sons . starbreeze began expanding the company in 2012 with its acquisition of overkill software . overkill s first title after the acquisition payday 2 helped starbreeze make a record profit after suffering an accumulated loss of 14.4 million since its inception . in 2015 the company announced that it would start publishing video games from independent developers and that it had begun the development of a virtual reality headset named project star vr . contents 1 history 1.1 founding and merger 1.2 post merger 1.3 2010 2016 2 developer 3 publisher 4 philosophy 5 sources 6 external links history edit founding and merger edit the company was founded by swedish programmer magnus h gdahl . h gdahl was a former member of the pc demoscene group triton 1 and specialized in making tech demos . he decided to leave the company after his project an action role playing game named into the shadows was cancelled . 2 he then decided to found his own studio and began crafting his own game engine . 1 he actively recruited staff among his acquaintances and the studio was officially established in 1998 in h rn sand sweden . 3 h gdahl serving as the company s head and tech lead was responsible for creating a new game engine for future games and looking for publishers willing to help publish its games . 1 at that time the company had only about five employees 1 and had created a prototype for a video game and pitched it to publishers at e3 1998 . 2 gremlin interactive agreed to publish the game and the deal was finalized in late 1998 . the company grew to have roughly eleven staff members . the game was a first person action role playing game named sorcery . with a high fantasy setting the game featured 3d visuals and its gameplay was similar to that of diablo and quake . 2 however gremlin interactive was acquired by infogrames in 2000 and the partnership with starbreeze dissolved resulting in the game s cancellation . 4 o3 games was founded by lars johansson who also worked at a demoscene company . its first game was the outforce a real time strategy space game that was released in 2000 and subsequently became a success for the company . o3 needed to expand so that it could continue video game development . 5 after sorcery s cancellation starbreeze ran into financial difficulties . unable to support itself financially starbreeze needed to merge with another developer to continue in business . 1 the two companies discussed a merger in uppsala and merged shortly afterwards retaining the name starbreeze studios . 5 post merger edit after the merger the company began working on enclave a medieval fantasy multiplayer only video game inspired by team fortress . the game also became the company s first project with international appeal enabling starbreeze to partner with various publishers including swing entertainment conspiracy entertainment and vivendi . 5 however swing entertainment faced bankruptcy at that time and decided to turn the game into a single player action adventure video game with the goal of sending it to market as soon as possible . 1 the game was released in 2002 and starbreeze had to lay off staff after its release . 4 enclave ii was also in development . the sequel was said to feature a more elaborate story 28 different maps 10 playable characters and an improved fighting system . 6 however these features were axed when starbreeze got into legal troubles with the publisher resulting in the game s cancellation . 1 another game knights of the temple infernal crusade was successfully released with help from publisher tdk mediactive . however its sequel was shifted to another developer . 1 starbreeze attempted to acquire another studio rock solid games but the agreement between the two fell apart and brought both companies financial problems . 4 the company was shutting down around us . this is something i m not very proud of but the riddick team actually cut ourselves off from the rest of the company . we moved to the third floor ... we knew that people were getting fired upstairs and everything . but we just sort of closed the doors we didn t talk about it and we just stayed focused on finishing the game jens andersson lead designer of the chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay another project being worked on by starbreeze at that time was the chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay . set in the the chronicles of riddick movie universe the game was published by vivendi . the team took inspiration from films such as escape from alcatraz and video games such as goldeneye 007 and the tom clancy s splinter cell series . 7 however the company was downsizing due to its financial problems and the number of employees dropped from 80 to 25 and the entire development team moved away from the main starbreeze floor to prevent it from being affected by low morale and to allow it to focus on the game s development . the game enjoyed an 18 month development cycle which was significantly longer than typical licensed games . a playstation 2 version of the game was also in development but was ultimately cancelled as the then head of vivendi s publishing division michael pole ordered its cancellation to make his mark . 1 universal motion pictures intervened and kept the game s xbox version . escape from butcher bay received critical acclaim upon its launch with many critics regarding it as one of the best licensed games ever made . its gameplay element including the puzzle solving mechanics the stealth segment and its ahead of its time visuals also received praise from critics . 1 despite receiving critical acclaim it was not a commercial success for starbreeze . 4 after the release of escape from butcher bay starbreeze again encountered financial difficulties after having not received a significant royalty payment from vivendi . it sold part of its motion capture and animation department to a british company centroid . 4 however the game helped set starbreeze s reputation as a studio capable of making good licensed titles . with the help of union entertainment an intermediary company starbreeze signed an agreement with majesco entertainment for a new title set within the the darkness universe owned by top cow comics on july 16 2004 . 8 midway through the game s development majesco underwent restructuring because of financial difficulties shifted its focus and dropped the game . 9 2k games stepped up and acquired the publishing rights . 2k extended the game s development cycle and asked starbreeze to develop a multiplayer mode for the game . the darkness was released in 2007 . it fared worse than the team expected critically but its commercial performance was satisfactory selling more than 1 million copies worldwide . 1 after working on two different licensed games the team intended to develop its own games . a game named kano involving mind reading was started but was never completed . after the release of the darkness the company signed a two project contract with vivendi . one of the games was a new property known as polaris . the game was set in a post apocalyptic environment . players were tasked to overcome snowstorms and defeat terrorists and monsters cooperatively with other players . vivendi was not convinced the game would succeed and adjusted the contract to a remake of escape from butcher bay the chronicles of riddick assault on dark athena . vivendi originally named the game riddick 2 but starbreeze disagreed claiming the name would raise expectations among gamers that the remake might not be able to deliver . 1 vivendi s subsidiary sierra entertainment was set to publish the game . 10 after the merger between activision and vivendi the new company began streamlining vivendi and put the game along with br tal legend and ghostbusters the video game up for sale . 11 atari eventually acquired the publishing rights and the game was released in 2009 . 12 2010 2016 edit starbreeze then partnered with electronic arts for two different games one was known as project redlime while the other was an action adventure video game set within the bourne universe . the bourne game was cancelled as a direct result of matt damon and director paul greengrass not participating in the fourth bourne film . 13 project redlime had a larger scale than the bourne game . it was said to be a reinvention of one of electronic arts franchises . 14 the company shifted from a technology orientated company to focus more on the core gameplay mechanics of their new project . syndicate was announced in september 2011 . 15 the game suffered from a troubled development with starbreeze completely reworking the game one year after its initial development . 16 there were also many creative differences between the developer and the publisher and the two companies suffered from an inharmonious relationship . during the game s development seven senior members of the company including h gdahl left to form their own smaller studio . some of them formed machinegames to work on their own original games . 1 with a budget that was less than other typical aaa video games syndicate received average reviews and was a commercial failure . 17 grefberg left the company after the game s completion 5 and 25 employees were laid off . 18 many employees left starbreeze when machinegames recruited . then ceo johan kristiansson also stepped down and was replaced by mikael nemark . nemark took the studio in a new direction . besides focusing on aaa video games it would also allocate resources to develop smaller downloadable games in order to broaden the company s portfolio . these new games would no longer use the engine created by h gdahl . in 2011 starbreeze announced that it was partnering with epic games to use their engine unreal engine for their first small titles . in 2012 starbreeze announced cold mercury a free to play video game and a project codenamed p13 . 19 prior to that josef fares an award winning swedish director had been unsuccessfully pitching game ideas to several swedish developers . starbreeze