WARDOGS just torched Steam Early Access, moving two million copies in five days and peaking at 428,666 concurrent players while the competition was still preloading Call of Duty. Bulkhead’s tactical 100-player slugfest racked up 122 million kills, 60 million revives, and enough in-game cash to make Scrooge McDuck blush, all before most teams finish their first balance pass. The studio that nearly died under Tencent now sits on a profitable Early Access launch with a console date locked to 2028, and CEO Joe Brammer is out here admitting the quiet part loud: they screen applicants’ socials for anti-crunch tweets and expect crunch to happen.

Brammer told The Game Business the studio checks prospective hires’ feeds and flags anyone screaming “this should never be a thing,” because “you’re not going to be happy here, so we’re not going to go with you.” He framed it as honesty—come work hard and get equity, or feel slave-driven—but the timing after three straight months of crunch before launch makes the whole thing smell like a participation trophy wrapped in overtime. Staff own shares, some bought houses from prior payouts, and the studio just avoided its annual 20% redundancy round for the first time in six years, but the message is clear: Bulkhead wants believers, not skeptics.

The player counts and kill tallies don’t lie. This thing is cooking. Whether the rest of the industry wants to copy the model or just wants to watch the obituary is the only question left.