Payday dev Starbreeze lands $40M investment from major Korean game corp

Korean game company Smilegate has invested $40 million in Payday 2 developer, Starbreeze, helping both companies "bridge the gap" between the East and the West. 

The deal sees Starbreeze receive the 10 year right to develop, publish, and distribute a new first-person co-op title based on Smilegate's free-to-play online FPS, Crossfire.

Though it might not be a household name in the West, Crossfire has a huge presence in the Eastern market, and has over 500 million users worldwide. 

With that in mind, Starbreeze's new game will be aimed squarely at Western audiences, and will look to build on the appeal of the original Crossfire series, which generated over $1.3 billion in sales during 2014 alone. 

The Swedish studio will also be allowed to release its own games through Smilegate's distribution platform, giving it a way to effectively roll out titles such as Payday 2 and Overkill's The Walking Dead in the East.