Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has pushed back against accusations that he endorses crunch, telling trade publication Knowledge that he is "pro hard work" rather than "pro crunch" as his military shooter Wardogs surpassed 3 million sales in its first 18 days on the market.

The interview comes two weeks after Brammer told The Games Business that Bulkhead would not hire people who "constantly tweet anti-crunch messaging." That remark triggered a backlash that has followed the studio through Wardogs' launch window.

"Just to be clear for the record, I'm not pro crunch, I am pro hard work. I just love making games," Brammer told Knowledge.

How has Bulkhead structured its overtime?

Brammer's defence centres on the conditions under which staff work extra hours. He told Eurogamer during the controversy that employees worked an extra two hours per week, Monday through Thursday, for a four-week stretch during development. The studio operates a four-day week.

"Defining crunch is really hard. It's subjective, but to me, if people work overtime, they should be rewarded for that," Brammer said. He framed current norms against an older industry baseline. "When I came into the industry, it was the EA Spouse era. Companies were making games for two years and planning for six months of working weekends and 10-hour days. It's horrendous behaviour that you've planned for it."

What does Brammer say to critics who blame management?

The CEO rejected the framing that crunch is fundamentally a planning failure. "I really don't agree with the 'it's just bad management and bad production' argument against crunch. That is such a bullshit mentality," he said, adding that shipping a new IP on cutting-edge technology carries constraints that preclude easy slippage.

"Making a new IP is hard, especially with new tech — we helped make some of the things in Unreal Engine 5, we're at the cutting edge. When things don't quite work how we want, we can't always go, 'oh, we'll delay the game a month.' That's just not how it works."

Brammer acknowledged the public-private split in industry discourse on the issue. "The conversations that happen in private are a lot different than the conversations that happen in public. I would bet that more people agree with me."

What changes for Bulkhead now?

Bulkhead was spun out of Tencent in December 2025, and Wardogs' commercial performance gives the independent studio runway to test Brammer's labour thesis at scale. The commercial data points:

• 3 million+ copies sold in 18 days
• 4-day working week as the studio default
• 2 extra hours per week during a 4-week pre-launch stretch
• Active contributions to Unreal Engine 5 tooling

The launch puts Bulkhead among a small group of studios to clear the 3 million unit threshold inside three weeks with a debut IP. Whether that success converts into a sustainable production model — or fuels the next round of the crunch debate — will depend on how the studio structures its post-launch content roadmap and whether staff retention data ever surfaces publicly.

Brammer's positioning also carries recruiting implications. His original The Games Business remark framed anti-crunch public advocacy as incompatible with employment at Bulkhead; the Knowledge interview softens the absolutism but leaves the underlying preference intact. Studios watching the row will note that the controversy has, so far, done nothing to dent early demand for Wardogs.

The next signal worth tracking: whether Bulkhead discloses retention metrics, expansion plans, or further content milestones for Wardogs in the coming quarter.