Everplay, the listed parent of Team17, has increased its stake in Bulkhead Interactive after the UK studio's multiplayer shooter Wardogs surpassed one million copies in early access.

The undisclosed top-up follows Bulkhead's December 2024 sale by Tencent to a consortium of Everplay, Super Media Group, and Hiro Capital. Expression Games' Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is also outperforming internal expectations, the group said.

Wardogs entered Steam early access on September 10, 2025. Everplay has not disclosed the revised ownership percentage or the financial terms of the additional stake.

What did the H1 numbers show?

In unaudited results for the six months ended June 30, 2026, Everplay reported revenue of £66.9 million, down 8% year-on-year, and profit of £23.9 million, down 29%. The decline reflects a release-light half: four new titles shipped, namely Lumentale: Memories of Trey, Sintopia, Wardrum, and Rogue Point.

Back-catalogue revenue told the opposite story, climbing 1.2% to £64.3 million across more than 150 titles. CEO Mikkel Weider framed that line as the group's structural backbone.

"Our back catalogue posted another resilient performance in a half in which there were no major new releases, underpinning the solid foundations upon which Everplay is built," Weider said.

Where is the development money going?

Game development investment rose 14% to £16.4 million, supporting a 20% expansion in the active development slate. Sixty-five percent of projects currently in development rest on original concepts or first-party IP, the group reported, a ratio that reduces exposure to licensed-IP volatility.

StoryToys, the group's mobile and tablet unit, recorded 43% revenue growth, with active subscribers up 22% to 408,000 and total downloads crossing 18 million.

Why does the Bulkhead stake matter?

Bulkhead shifted into shooters after shipping Battalion 1944 in 2019 and rebuilt around a new programme that became Wardogs. With Wardogs and Hell Let Loose: Vietnam both pacing ahead of plan, performance-related and milestone payments from those titles will carry more weight in Everplay's H2 mix than in H1, per the group's own framing of those games as outperforming.

The consortium structure — three investors with non-overlapping mandates — gives Everplay room to consolidate influence without triggering a full acquisition event. The additional stake moves in that direction, though no change-of-control threshold was disclosed.

What changes for studios working with the group?

Developers pitching Team17's publishing programme or Bulkhead's third-party operation read the 14% development-investment uplift and 20% wider slate as capacity for additional signings. Weider positioned the group for accelerated growth, citing the balance sheet, the catalogue, and what he called a "growing portfolio of first-party IP."

For the wider M&A market, the Bulkhead sequence offers a reference point: a Tencent carve-out reabsorbed into a mid-tier publisher inside roughly twelve months, with the new owner taking a larger stake rather than holding passively.

The next read on whether Bulkhead consolidation continues will arrive with Everplay's full-year results, when unit-sales milestones and any revision to the disclosed stake should surface.