The developer of Wardogs has acknowledged that the Xbox Series S’s limitations have prevented it from adding certain features to the game, while insisting those constraints have also delivered unique benefits.
During a press conference for Wardogs Season 2, Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer said the team is “limited” by the Xbox Series S and revealed this is one of the reasons why the game lacks dynamic weather. According to a report by Cade Onder for IGN, Brammer noted that performance concerns are behind the decision.
“We are limited, as every dev is, by Xbox Series S,” said Brammer. “As great a platform as Xbox is, it’s a very low-end hardware for a game like Wardogs. We have to be mindful of these things we’re putting in the game now. Performance is the reason we don’t do it, but we would love to see it at some point. There’s an ambition for it, but nobody is working on it right now.”
The new rain feature being added to Wardogs this month will be persistent throughout a match, meaning a storm won’t suddenly roll through halfway through a game and lighten up within 15 minutes. It’s a constant downpour.
Bulkhead isn’t the first team to acknowledge difficulties around Microsoft’s cheaper console, which launched alongside the Xbox Series X in November 2020. Moon Studio founder Thomas Mahler stated earlier this year that it was delaying No Rest for the Wicked’s Xbox release due to troubles with the Xbox Series S. Baldur’s Gate 3 also came to Xbox a few months late and required the help of Microsoft’s engineers to get the game’s split-screen co-op working on Series S.
One question facing Microsoft ever since the release of the Xbox Series S has been whether it would be willing to allow developers and publishers to release a game on Xbox Series X only, leaving Xbox Series S behind. As it stands, Xbox mandates that video games launch on both or none at all, and that there should be main feature parity between each version.
Although Wardogs isn’t coming to console until 2028, Bulkhead is hyper-aware of how everything it puts in the game could impact consoles in the future. In a follow-up interview exclusive to IGN, studio co-founder Howard Philpott echoed sentiments about possibly adding dynamic weather in the future, but noted Bulkhead would have to handle it carefully to avoid tanking performance.
“As for Series S, Joe is right, and it’s not an industry secret or anything,” he said. “It is holding back what developers can do in terms of pushing the boundaries because it’s so far behind par in terms of the rest of the power of the rest of the consoles. So yeah, it’s something we have to be cognizant of, but at the same time, Series S does actually give us that baseline performance.”
Philpott added that while Series S has its pitfalls, it also lets the developer optimize the game for lower-end PCs. He said Bulkhead was “so heavy” during pre-release in terms of talking about PC performance, but hadn’t discussed how much Series S drove them to make performance good on lower-spec PCs.
“The goal is to get everyone to be able to play with all of their friends. There’s an obvious financial benefit to that, so it’s not completely altruistic, but at the same time, it is the goal. That is the point of the game: being able to play with as many people as possible.”
Philpott also noted that Bulkhead has always imagined Wardogs as a multi-platform game. The team recognized there was heavy demand for controller support prior to Wardogs’ early access launch, prompting them to quickly put something together. He stated that this support is in “an okay serviceable state, but really it needs to be a lot better.”
Senior producer Kane Allard noted that situation has prompted Bulkhead to be more “forward thinking.” “I think that’s a good example of one of the things that bit us a bit and made us realize actually we do need to be forward thinking,” said Allard. “We made the decision, as Howard said, originally we were releasing on PC for early access, and it was kind of an afterthought, we need to have controller support. And then we realized there was a massive outcry for it, and we had to look back at the systems we had and try and make them work with controller, and there was a fair amount of work there.”
Allard said they did deliver controller support in the end, but “it was a little bit of a slog.” He added that the team then realized it needed to be “really smart, build stuff with console in mind, with controller in mind,” taking that approach forward for everything it puts in the game.
It will be a while before Wardogs makes its way to consoles, but this is a major part of the game’s journey. Philpott also said Bulkhead hired a pro Halo player to help with controller support and ensuring that it gets an extra level of care.
Wardogs Season 2 will launch next week on October 15.
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