Bulkhead

Wardogs is made by Bulkhead (formerly Bulkhead Interactive), a studio in Derby, UK, that says it was founded in 2015 and is known for The Turing Test and Battalion 1944. Tencent sold it in Dec 2025 to a consortium of Super Media Group, everplay and HIRO Capital; Team17 publishes Wardogs.

0:54 Wardogs is made by Bulkhead, a studio in Derby, UK, that Bulkhead says was "founded in 2015 by a small group of friends" and that made The Turing Test and Battalion 1944 before it; Team17 publishes the game. The studio traded as Bulkhead Interactive when Splash Damage bought it in 2022, which put it under Splash Damage's owner Tencent. In the week of Dec 11, 2025, Tencent sold Bulkhead to a consortium of Super Media Group (led by Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer), everplay group and HIRO Capital, and Wardogs went from a planned AAA game to a Steam Early Access launch on Sep 10, 2026. The studio had about 100 staff in December 2025. For the game's own story see Development History.

Quick facts

Name	Bulkhead (written BULKHEAD; formerly Bulkhead Interactive)
Company	Bulkhead Limited
Based in	Derby, UK
Founded	2015, by Bulkhead's own account
Staff	About 100 (Dec 2025)
Earlier games	The Turing Test, Battalion 1944 (later Battalion Legacy)
Owner	Super Media Group, with everplay (28%) and HIRO Capital, since Dec 2025
Before that	Splash Damage (2022), so Tencent
CEO	Joe Brammer ("brammflakes" on Steam and X)
Publisher of Wardogs	Team17 (everplay group plc)

Sources: Bulkhead's Season 2 press release, Oct 15, 2026; Wardogs official site, read Oct 26, 2026; The Game Business, Sep 15, 2026; PCGamesInsider.biz, Dec 9, 2022; Hitmarker, Dec 11, 2025; everplay's half-year results, Sep 15, 2026; Shacknews, Oct 25, 2026.

The studio and its early games

Bulkhead describes itself as a Derby studio "founded in 2015 by a small group of friends", known for the indie games The Turing Test and Battalion 1944 and now building larger multiplayer games (Bulkhead's boilerplate, Oct 15, 2026). The store and the studio write the name in capitals, BULKHEAD; the official site gives the company as Bulkhead Limited. It opened a second studio in Munich in 2018, and some outlets, PC Gamer among them, still call it Bulkhead Interactive (PC Gamer, Oct 16, 2026).

Battalion 1944 and its collapse

9:35 Battalion 1944, a World War II shooter published by Square Enix (Bulkhead's first publisher, per Brammer), was later rebranded Battalion Legacy, and the Square Enix partnership ended around August 2022. Bulkhead tells the story itself in its "10 reasons not to buy" video for Wardogs: "with the low player numbers of only 50 to 200 daily players, our publisher relationships broke down, the console version was held in limbo by lawyers, and we burned through our profits supporting the game" (PC Gamer, Aug 11, 2026). GameSpot adds that Bulkhead refunded Battalion's Kickstarter backers (Aug 13, 2026).

Splash Damage and Tencent

Bulkhead announced on Twitter on Dec 9, 2022 that Splash Damage had acquired it, though Companies House filings showed Splash Damage as a person with significant control from May 2022, and Splash Damage CEO Richard Jolly and COO Griff Jenkins became Bulkhead directors in August 2022 (PCGamesInsider.biz, Dec 9, 2022). The two studios were then working together on Transformers: Reactivate. Splash Damage was owned by Tencent, so Bulkhead came under Tencent through it; Splash Damage later split from Tencent and Bulkhead stayed with the Chinese company (Hitmarker, Dec 11, 2025). Under Tencent, Wardogs was planned as a major AAA game (The Game Business, Sep 15, 2026).

The Dec 2025 sale: Super Media Group, everplay and HIRO Capital

In the week of Dec 11, 2025, Tencent sold Bulkhead for an undisclosed sum to a new consortium of Super Media Group (SMG), everplay group (Team17's parent) and HIRO Capital. SMG's directors are Joe Brammer (Bulkhead's CEO), Kevin Chandler (CTO) and Mark Pinney (CFO) (Hitmarker, Dec 11, 2025). everplay bought 20% of Super Media Group for £2.0 million as a strategic partnership, described Bulkhead as an independent UK FPS specialist with its own Unreal Engine tooling, the "War Tech Framework", and said the two would explore co-developing future Hell Let Loose games. After Jun 30, 2026 everplay used an option to raise its stake from 20% to 28% for another £2 million. Brammer on the deal: "We're really excited about this partnership and our future collaboration on the Hell Let Loose franchise."

Redundancies and size

Brammer told The Game Business that in December 2025, before the deal closed, he warned staff they faced possible redundancy, and that "For six years, we've made redundancies every year. This will be the first time we haven't", about 20% of staff each year. Bulkhead had about 100 staff that December (The Game Business, Sep 15, 2026). He said Wardogs needed to sell at least 400,000 copies and that 600,000 would have been "okay"; it sold 3 million in just over two weeks (Bulkhead, Sep 26, 2026). Sales and players are on Player Count and Release History.

People named in coverage

Person	Role as press gives it
Joe Brammer	CEO of Bulkhead and executive producer on Wardogs; posts as "brammflakes"
Howard Philpott	Co-founder; credited as game director (PC Gamer) and UI/UX director (PCGamesN)
James Tatum-Dean	Production director
Kane Allard	Senior producer on Wardogs
Pete Harries	Lead game designer
Nightingale	Creative director (PCGamesN gives the surname only)
Tadros	Technical designer (PCGamesN gives the surname only)

Sources: PCGamesN, Sep 19, 2026; Shacknews, Oct 25, 2026; PC Gamer, Oct 16, 2026; PCGamesN, Sep 12, 2026; GamesRadar+, Sep 19, 2026; PCGamesN, Oct 25, 2026.

Brammer is the studio's public voice: he answers players on Steam and X, called the post-launch drop in players "the first phase of @WARDOGS perfectly acceptable decline" (GamesRadar+, Sep 16, 2026), and gave the Nov 12 date for Season 3 in a Steam reply. His titles vary by outlet; this viki calls him Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer.

Hiring and the crunch controversy

5:00 Senior producer Kane Allard said Bulkhead checks applicants' Steam records to be sure they are "passionate about FPS games", and Brammer added: "You wouldn't let me go and make Final Fantasy" (GamesRadar+, Sep 19, 2026). In The Game Business interview Brammer also said "I expect people to crunch", that people with an issue with crunch "often don't make it in the door", and "We check people's socials" (PC Gamer, Sep 15, 2026). He then told Eurogamer the crunch was optional: after Wardogs was late for its June 2026 beta build, staff worked an extra two hours a day, Monday to Thursday, for four weeks (16 working days), and four people opted out. He listed a four-day week for half of the game's development and the whole of December off as benefits (GamesRadar+, Sep 17, 2026). On launch day Brammer's studio tour showed a room of air mattresses for staff working overnight on the servers, and on Sep 26 he wrote that "a good chunk of the team have been forced to use holiday this week" after weeks "fighting bottom-feeder cheaters and constant DDOS attacks" (GamesRadar+, Sep 28, 2026). More on cheating is on Anti-Cheat and Bans. The clip is Bulkhead's Jul 16, 2026 devlog saying it checks applicants' Steam hours.

Team17's role

Team17 publishes Wardogs and Bulkhead develops it (Steam). Team17, founded in 1990, is part of everplay group plc and owns Hell Let Loose, Worms and The Escapists (announcement release, Feb 5, 2026). everplay calls Wardogs Team17's first game with its strategic partner Bulkhead; its half-year results said Wardogs was performing "well ahead of our expectations", and its Sep 30 trading update said it had sold about three million copies, without giving revenue or royalty terms. Team17 also runs player support for the game at team17.com/support (see Crashes and Errors).

Frequently asked questions

Who made Wardogs? Wardogs is developed by Bulkhead, a studio in Derby, UK, and published by Team17. Bulkhead says it was founded in 2015 and made The Turing Test and Battalion 1944 before Wardogs.

Is Bulkhead Interactive the same as Bulkhead? Yes. The studio behind Wardogs traded as Bulkhead Interactive, the name under which Splash Damage bought it in 2022, and now calls itself Bulkhead (written BULKHEAD).

Does Tencent own Wardogs' developer? No. Tencent sold Bulkhead in the week of Dec 11, 2025 to a consortium of Super Media Group, everplay group and HIRO Capital, before Wardogs launched in Early Access.

Who is the CEO of Bulkhead? Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer leads the studio and is executive producer on Wardogs; he posts on Steam and X as "brammflakes". He is also a director of Super Media Group, which owns Bulkhead.

How many people work at Bulkhead? Bulkhead had about 100 staff in December 2025, according to The Game Business. Wardogs is its largest game.

Did Bulkhead make Battalion 1944? Yes. Battalion 1944, later Battalion Legacy, is Bulkhead's earlier shooter; Bulkhead says its player numbers fell to 50 to 200 a day and the studio burned through its profits supporting it.