Wardogs-turns-a-multiplayer-fps-into-a-mercenary-economy/">Wardogs developer Bulkhead is facing renewed scrutiny over its workplace expectations after CEO Joe Brammer openly defended the studio's use of crunch and said the company does not bring in people who are firmly opposed to it.
In comments discussing Bulkhead's internal culture, Brammer described crunch as something the studio tries to manage rather than eliminate entirely. His view of balance is not a conventional, stable weekly workload, but a cycle in which employees may work much harder during key stretches of development before being given room to slow down afterward.
The remarks arrive during a major moment for Wardogs. The game has sold 2 million copies in less than a week and has climbed near the top of Steam's most-played rankings, giving Bulkhead a significant commercial success but also placing greater attention on the people behind it. A console release is planned for 2028, and Brammer said the studio is unwilling to accelerate that version by demanding even more from the team.
A different definition of balance
Crunch has long been one of the games industry's most contentious labor issues. The term generally refers to periods of extended hours and heightened pressure, often in the final months before a game launches or reaches another major production milestone. Developers, workers' organizations, and critics have repeatedly raised concerns about burnout, family strain, health, and whether extra work is voluntary in practice when employment and career opportunities are at stake.
For useful background on this topic, read Masahiro Sakurai's Game Designers Award Ends After 16 Years Without a Successor.
Brammer acknowledged that Bulkhead's approach may not match what many people picture when they hear the word balance. Instead of attempting to maintain the same pace all year, he said the company sometimes asks its team to push hard for several months. In return, the studio is meant to recognize when staff need to take their foot off the gas and allow them to do so without fearing a punitive response.
"For the last three months, Wardogs has been a lot more important than a lot of their family lives," Brammer said. "It has been, because that's what pays the money for them. But now Bulkhead has to acknowledge that it needs to go the other way."
That framing is likely to be controversial. It directly recognizes that a major development push can take priority over employees' lives outside work, even while presenting the subsequent recovery period as the other side of a broader bargain. For critics of crunch, the central concern is that a later chance to rest may not undo the costs caused by a sustained period of excessive work.
Still, Brammer argued that the studio has drawn a line around its planned console port. Demand for Wardogs on consoles may be strong following the game's early PC success, but he said Bulkhead has rejected pressure to bring that version out sooner. The company's position, he explained, is that it cannot keep adding work on top of an already intense schedule.
"We can't push them more. We're not doing that," Brammer said, adding that the console release will arrive in 2028 when Bulkhead says it will.
Bulkhead has not specified the console platforms in these comments. With the release still scheduled for 2028, there is also considerable time before the studio will need to outline the feature set, performance targets, pricing, or exact launch timing for those editions.
Hiring for a crunch-tolerant workplace
The most pointed part of Brammer's comments concerns recruitment. He said people who actively criticize crunch online generally do not make it through Bulkhead's hiring process, because the studio believes they are unlikely to fit its culture.
Brammer did not dismiss the reasons people object to crunch. He said those objections can be valid and stressed that Bulkhead tries to avoid crunch where possible. At the same time, he said the company does not conceal its expectation that crunch will happen at some stage. In his view, a candidate who is fundamentally unwilling to accept that possibility is not right for the studio.
"We want to be known for that: this is a place you come to work hard," Brammer said. "If you care about the work you're making and the result of what you make here, you'll feel really valued. If you don't, you will feel slave-driven."
That is an unusually blunt articulation of a studio identity built around intensity. Many game companies have faced criticism after reports of long hours, but public messaging often emphasizes a commitment to employee wellbeing, flexible schedules, or efforts to reduce overtime. Brammer's position is instead that Bulkhead should be candid about the kind of environment it wants to create and hire people who knowingly choose it.
However, consent around crunch is complicated in an industry where jobs can be competitive and developers may feel pressure to accept demanding conditions in order to work on a successful project. Employees can also have very different levels of financial security, caregiving responsibilities, health needs, or ability to absorb a heavy workload. A policy that works for one developer may not be sustainable for another, even when both care deeply about the game.
Family life and the limits of extended work
Brammer said crunch has become more difficult as the Bulkhead team has grown older and more employees have begun starting families. That change has influenced the studio's thinking about leave and time away from work, though the resulting policy he described may also prompt questions.
Bulkhead initially offered 10 weeks of paternity leave, Brammer said. The studio later replaced that arrangement with two weeks of paternity leave plus half-days for employees, after finding that some partners were struggling with the transition when staff returned to work after a longer leave period.
The explanation is notable because two weeks is a substantial reduction from the original 10-week offering. Half-days may provide additional flexibility during the early period of family adjustment, but they are not the same as uninterrupted leave. The comments do not establish how the policy applies across roles, whether the half-days are paid, how long they can be used, or whether comparable arrangements are available for other forms of parental leave.
More broadly, the discussion illustrates a tension in the studio's stated approach. Bulkhead says it wants staff to be able to say they are "tapping out" without worrying that they will be fired. Yet its CEO also says the company seeks workers who will accept that crunch is part of the job. The difference between a genuinely safe option to step back and a theoretical option that may affect advancement, bonuses, or team standing can be significant, especially during a high-profile production period.
Bonuses and shares for select employees
To support its crunch model, Bulkhead offers what Brammer called a meaningful amount of bonuses and company shares to selected employees. Not every developer is eligible for those rewards.
He argued that if a company expects crunch, it should make sure people receive something tangible in return for their effort. With Wardogs quickly reaching 2 million copies sold, the potential value of those incentives has become a central part of the conversation. Brammer said the returns for employees who work hard can be life-changing.
"If we're going to be a company who says, 'we do crunch', then we have to also say, 'but you get something for it,'" Brammer said.
Performance bonuses and equity can be meaningful forms of compensation, particularly when a game becomes a hit. But selective eligibility also matters. Without details on who qualifies, how awards are calculated, how broadly shares are distributed, or whether staff who reduce their workload can still access them, it is difficult to assess how evenly the rewards match the contributions made across a project.
The issue reaches beyond Bulkhead. In game development, success often depends on the combined work of teams across design, engineering, art, quality assurance, production, community, operations, and other disciplines. Debates over crunch frequently include not only the hours expected, but who shares in the financial upside when a project performs well.
Wardogs' success puts Bulkhead's culture in focus
Wardogs' early momentum makes Bulkhead's workplace strategy especially consequential. Selling 2 million copies in under a week is a major commercial milestone, while its position among Steam's most-played games indicates that player interest has continued beyond launch. The game's success may help the studio invest in future development, support its workforce, and prepare for the eventual console edition.
It also means that Bulkhead will be judged not just on Wardogs' commercial performance, but on how it handles the demands that come with an expanding audience. Brammer's insistence that the console version will not be rushed is one concrete commitment to watch as 2028 approaches. So too is whether the studio's promised ability for employees to step back holds up during future high-pressure milestones.
For now, Bulkhead's leadership is presenting an explicit trade-off: demanding periods of work, followed by flexibility and potential financial rewards for some employees. Supporters may see that as a more honest arrangement than studios that publicly reject crunch while still imposing it near deadlines. Critics are likely to argue that transparency does not resolve the underlying risks of normalizing extended work, particularly when access to rewards is selective and the cultural expectation is to prove a willingness to push through.
Wardogs has given Bulkhead a major hit. The next challenge will be demonstrating that the studio can sustain that success without making excessive work an unavoidable price of participation.
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