Wardogs Developer Says Xbox Series S Blocks Dynamic Weather but Improves Low-End PC Performance

What Bulkhead actually said​

IGN reported that Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer spoke during a press conference for Wardogs Season 2. He said the studio is "limited, as every dev is, by Xbox Series S," and called the console very low-end hardware for a game like Wardogs. His specific example was weather. Brammer said performance is why the game doesn't have fully dynamic weather. He said the team would like to add it eventually, but nobody is working on it right now.

In a follow-up interview with IGN, Bulkhead co-founder Howard Philpott agreed with Brammer and said the issue is "not an industry secret." He said the Series S holds developers back because it trails the power of the other current consoles. He also offered a counterpoint: the console gives the team a performance baseline. Philpott said the Series S pushed Bulkhead to make the game run well on lower-spec PCs, with the goal of letting as many friends as possible play together. He also said there is a financial benefit to reaching more hardware, so the motive is not purely altruistic.

Section summary:

• The Series S is one reason Wardogs lacks dynamic weather, and the feature is not in active development.
• Bulkhead says designing for the Series S has also driven its low-spec PC optimization.
• These are the developers' explanations. No frame rates, memory budgets or benchmark comparisons were published.

"Dynamic rain" that doesn't change mid-match​

The weather debate has some background. Bulkhead confirmed the Season 2 date in a short teaser, and that clip showed a map changing from dry to stormy. Several outlets read it as dynamic weather. TechWiser's teaser breakdown listed dynamic weather effects as a confirmed new gameplay addition.

Bulkhead then corrected that reading. According to VICE, the studio posted on X that "rain is an additional weather state per map and not a dynamic event mid match." VICE added that a match won't start out dry before turning into a storm. GameBastion likewise said matches that include rain will experience rainfall the entire time, from start to finish.

The word "dynamic" still appears in Bulkhead's marketing, with a narrower meaning. Shacknews, citing a Bulkhead press release, reported that rain will dynamically interact with the ground and environment and that during lightning storms, thunder will ring out across the level, obscuring footsteps and other sounds. Rain reacts to the world around it, but whether it rains is fixed when the match starts. Brammer's Series S comments explain why the weather can't change mid-match.

The rain could still matter for gameplay. GameBastion reported that senior producer Kane Allard told IGN the rain "completely changes the game." The same report says Bulkhead isn't ruling anything out for other weather effects, but has to consider how something like snow would change the game both in terms of gameplay and how the game performs.

Section summary: Season 2 adds rain as a fixed condition on each map, with environmental and audio effects. Weather that changes during a match is a separate feature, and that is the one Bulkhead says the Series S currently rules out.

Why one weaker console affects a PC early-access game​

If Wardogs isn't on console until 2028, why does the Series S matter now? Because of Microsoft's certification rules.

Microsoft's Xbox requirement XR-130 (version 3.0, dated July 27, 2026, last updated September 15, 2026) requires games targeting a console generation to support every device in that generation. For Series X|S games, it requires:

• saves that work across both console types
• no splitting online players by console type
• identical game modes on both consoles

Its certification tests use one Series S and one Series X. They check that saves move between the two, that players on different models can play together, and that both offer the same game modes.

The rule is narrower than some coverage suggests. XR-130 does not say every visual effect or setting must match on both consoles, and studios routinely ship lower resolutions and fewer effects on the Series S. Shared matchmaking is the real constraint for Wardogs. In a large-scale shooter, mid-match weather affects visibility, sound and tactics for everyone in the same server. If a Series S player and a Series X player share a lobby and identical modes, it is hard to make gameplay-affecting weather a Series X extra. So for a feature like this, the Series S effectively sets the limit for every console player, and Bulkhead is choosing not to build systems now that it would have to remove for console later.

That is our reading of the requirement, not something Bulkhead has said. The studio has not said which XR-130 test, if any, drove its weather decision.

Section summary: Microsoft requires full Series X|S family support, cross-model online play and identical game modes. Those rules mean features that affect gameplay must run on the Series S.

Bulkhead's not the first to raise this​

IGN pointed to other developers who have struggled with the console:

• Moon Studios founder Thomas Mahler said earlier this year that Series S problems were delaying the Xbox release of No Rest for the Wicked.
• Baldur's Gate 3 reached Xbox a few months late and needed help from Microsoft engineers to get split-screen co-op working on the Series S.

Since the console launched in November 2020, the question has been whether Microsoft would ever allow Series X-only releases. Its published policy still requires support for the whole family.

There is also a case for the Series S that Bulkhead itself makes. A fixed, low-power target is a useful test system. A game that runs acceptably on the Series S has a better chance on older gaming laptops, budget desktops and mid-range GPUs. These are the PCs that many Steam players actually own. Calling the console a drag on ambition and calling it a discipline for optimization can both be true. Bulkhead hasn't published minimum-spec changes or performance data to show how much the Series S has helped on PC, so treat the claim as the studio's account for now.

Controller support needed a rework​

The interview also covered controllers, which is useful for anyone playing on a Windows PC with an Xbox pad. Philpott said Bulkhead always intended Wardogs to be multi-platform. Demand for controller support before early access caught the team off guard, so it built support quickly. He described the current state as "an okay serviceable state," and said it needs to be much better.

Allard said this taught the studio a lesson. Controller support had been an afterthought for a PC-first early-access launch. After strong player demand, the team had to adapt existing systems, which he called "a bit of a slog." Bulkhead now builds new systems with console and controller in mind from the start. Philpott added that the studio hired a professional Halo player to help with controller support. The player was not named, and Bulkhead did not describe the scope of that work.

For PC players, this means controller play in Wardogs works now, but by the developers' own account it isn't finished. Expect revisions over the course of early access.

The bigger picture and what's next​

Wardogs is a big release for Bulkhead. A Season 2 announcement republished by Playday says the game surpassed 1,000,000 copies sold within hours of launch and later passed three million sales. The same announcement quotes Brammer: "Early Access is about continuing to build the game with our community".

According to Shacknews, Season 2 also adds four new weapons to the game: TCX-SPR Assault Rifle, M14 DMR, PP-19 Bizon SMG and Evo-3 Ultra LMG. It also adds an optional higher-risk objective system that is in a testing phase, and Bulkhead says it may remove it if it proves to be too exploitable.

Key facts:

Bulkhead's comments put a real example behind a long-running argument. The Series S does limit some ambitious features, at least in large multiplayer games where every player has to see the same match. The trade-off is that a game built to run on a $299 console also has a better chance on the modest gaming PC in your spare room. Whether that trade-off works out is something Windows players can judge from their own frame rates once Season 2 arrives.