Starbreeze CEO: Payday TV Series Could Explore the Complex Inner Lives of the Payday Clowns

Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren has spoken on the possibility of a Payday TV series or movie, saying it would be a “perfect fit” as it would allow the team to explore the complex lives of the Payday clowns alongside delivering a ton of action.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.Biz, Tobias Sjögren discussed the inspirations behind Payday, how they’ve already collaborated with other movie franchises, and how fans have already become attached to certain characters through the games’ stories and trailers.

“It’s certainly inspired by movies like Heat, and we’ve done several movie IP collaborations, including John Wick, Scarface, Point Break, Reservoir Dogs,” Sjögren says. “The reason why they have worked so well is Payday has an element of suspense when you are playing it. There are action moments, but these characters actually have a deeper storyline; they have a personality in the story of the game and through the other trailers were done, players have got to know these guys and people and identify with them in various ways.”

However, there is still so much left to explore, explains Sjögren, as the games have only begun to scratch the surface of the full history of the characters. This is why he thinks TV would truly be the perfect place, as it allows for the necessary time to build out this world and those inside it.

“There’s a lot of additional tidbits that can be learned about these characters, their backgrounds, and their motivations,” Sjögren said. “The masks have set such a big portion of their personalities. There’s a story as to why they have that mask specifically. When you play, you constantly see this mask that reminds you about this. A very cool combination of those factors makes it a very suitable IP for TV format.”

Sjögren then moves the talk to The Last of Us, which has a full story in the game that was designed to be as cinematic as possible and transitioned mostly 1:1 to TV. Payday, on the other hand, has much more room to play with when it comes to adaptations.

“These game IPs now when they are being adapted to TV or film are certainly coming from very different standpoints,” Sjögren said. “The Last Of Us is like playing an interactive movie and the TV series is the game. There’s a super strong connection. Payday is on the other side of the spectrum, much like perhaps Halo, and has a lot more flexibility and holes to fill. But you definitely already care about these characters that have been built through the game. You have built an understanding. There’s a basic foundation there that can be explored and that’s what makes an IP like Payday very interesting for the TV format.”

Sjögren talked on a range of other topics, including the excitement the team has to finally launch Payday 3 in 2023, how the team expects to launch a game in 2025 and 2027 that are “a mix of licensed IP and our own IP,” and much more.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.