Bulkhead, the studio behind the Steam Early Access shooter WARDOGS, is giving its whole team the month of December off, and CEO Joe Brammer has told players to spend that time on GTA 6. “Go play GTA 6, we need to detox,” Brammer told Edge magazine, in an interview first reported by GamesRadar (Edge’s sister site) on November 3.
The WARDOGS December break comes less than three months after the game’s September 10 Early Access launch, and it lands in the same window as Rockstar’s November 19 release of Grand Theft Auto VI.
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What Joe Brammer said about the December break
According to GamesRadar, the entire studio will be on leave “throughout the entire month of December.” Brammer framed the break as a reward for a team that has been stretched since launch: “Everyone has done something that’s not in their job description. Everyone wears multiple hats, because they can see the path to success with the product.”
He was just as blunt about the players. In the same interview he said Bulkhead wants players to know they can, in his saltier wording, clear off for December, then added the GTA 6 line. Kotaku and Insider Gaming quote him with the same wording as GamesRadar, and IGN ran the “detox” quote in its headline.
WARDOGS is a large-scale PC multiplayer shooter in Steam Early Access since September 10. Image: Bulkhead / Team17
What the break means for WARDOGS players
Here’s what Bulkhead has actually said, and what it hasn’t:
- Who is off: the whole studio, for all of December, per Brammer’s Edge interview.
- Servers and fixes: none of the reports quotes Bulkhead on whether official servers, emergency hotfixes or support will keep running during the break.
- Official notice: as of 16:00 UTC on November 3 there is no post about the break on the game’s Steam page; the last official announcement there is the October 15 “Season 02 is now live” post.
- When work resumes: GamesRadar reads Brammer’s comments as the team expecting a backlog of bug reports and balance complaints “come January,” which suggests January for the return. Bulkhead hasn’t given a date.
We’ll update this story if Bulkhead posts details about servers or support during December.
Season 3 comes first
The break follows a bumpy autumn. Season 2 launched on October 15 with changes Bulkhead partly reversed within days (our WARDOGS Season 2 guide covers what changed). In a podcast in late October, Brammer said the team had “got to slow down” on the pace of updates, PCGamesN reported.
Community manager Brian “L0ssy” McCrann then told players the Season 3 preview devlog planned for the last week of October was being held back: “We’re making some big moves and want to get the information right before committing to camera.” PCGamesN reported that Season 3 is currently scheduled for Thursday, November 12, and will add limited servers that restrict players to early-to-midgame gear, with no high-rank armor, power weapons, tanks or artillery. If that date holds, Season 3 will have been live for under three weeks when the studio clocks off.
Season 3, reported for November 12, adds limited servers without tanks, artillery or top-tier gear. Image: Bulkhead / Team17
Why GTA 6, and why now
The timing is hard to miss. Rockstar’s GTA VI page lists the game as coming November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. WARDOGS is a Windows PC game, so Brammer is effectively pointing his players at a console release. For exact unlock times and the download size, see our GTA 6 release time and pre-load guide; for the PC question, see what Rockstar and Take-Two have said about a GTA 6 PC release. The same Edge issue also carries Rockstar’s GTA VI cover feature, which we covered in GTA 6 map size and NPCs: what Rockstar told Edge.
Not everyone thinks a holiday shutdown is safe for a live game. Insider Gaming pointed to Embark Studios’ break over last year’s festive period with Arc Raiders, saying problems and cheating piled up while the team was away. Bulkhead hasn’t said how it will handle anything that breaks in December.
What’s next
The next official step is Season 3, which PCGamesN says is due November 12, along with the delayed devlog explaining it. Watch the WARDOGS Steam news feed for an official schedule covering December and the team’s return in the new year.
Sources: GamesRadar / Edge, Kotaku, Insider Gaming, PCGamesN, WARDOGS on Steam, Rockstar Games.
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Featured image: Bulkhead / Team17
