Starbreeze has announced today via Youtube that they have purchased the rights to Payday 2 from 505 Games and will be removing the microtransactions that were introduced last year. This implies that 505 Games may have had a hand either in the introduction of the microtransactions or keeping them on after fans shared their disdain for them. Potentially, as well, this may just be clever communicating from Starbreeze, using the rights acquisition as the perfect time to announce the microtransaction removal.

The introduction of the microtransactions, which were similar to keys and crates in Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike GO, allowed players to purchase random skins that gave you a stat boost within the game. This quickly led to fans labelling the game as ‘Pay2win’ and being vocally against the model. While the stat increases were removed in a past update, instead letting you earn them over time and tying them to your weapons, the stigma still remained.

While Payday 2 will likely still be supported by ongoing weapon and map DLC, this is a step in the right direction to bringing fans back on board, myself included.