Gears Tactics developer Splash Damage are switching to a four-day work week
Splash Damage, the studio behind Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Gears Tactics, are switching to a four-day work week for those in their London office. The change follows a Splash Damage subsidiary that successfully made the change to a four-day week in 2022.
"Splash Damage is changing the way we work," the studio announced on Twitter. "We're moving to a four-day work week, on-site in our London office." Splash Damage currently employs over 400 people, some of which are "hybrid" workers, to whom this change doesn't apply.
Fellow UK studio and Splash Damage subsidiary Bulkhead, the developers of Battalion 1944, switched to a four-day week for a six-month trial in February 2022. At the time Bulkhead had over 100 developers. Bulkhead are currently working alongside Splash Damage on the upcoming Transformers: Reactivate.
Several other game studios have switched to a four-day week in recent years, including Homeworld 3 developers Blackbird Interactive and Guardians Of The Galaxy makers Eidos Montreal. It's often pitched as an attempt to address the often wonky work-life balance of game development, and is designed to help studios to attract and retain staff.
Splash Damage began by partnering with Id Software on the likes of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and later worked on original games such as Brink and Dirty Bomb and licensed properties like Gears Of War 4. They were purchased by Chinese holding company Leyou in 2016 and then by Tencent in 2020. They're mostly known for first-person shooters, but 2020 turn-based strategy Gears Tactics was surprisingly great.
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