WARDOGS Field Notes by Ted

7 Things You Only Figure Out After 10 Hours of WARDOGS

Ted — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Read this after your first ten hours and check how many you already found on your own.

While playing the WARDOGS beta, I realized that there are many little learnings along the way. Not explained in the initial tutorial. Not because it's hidden necessarily, but because it's the kind of stuff you only notice when something clicks in match 14 and you think "wait, that's how that works?"

Quick context if you're new to it: WARDOGS is BULKHEAD's tactical FPS, published by Team17, and it hits Steam Early Access on September 10, 2026. Up to 100 players in three teams, fighting over a randomized Control Zone inside a much bigger map. First team to 100 points wins. There's no class select screen. You buy your kit each life with cash that carries over between matches, and six separate XP tracks (Assault, Medic, Recon, Support, Driver, Pilot) that quietly track what you actually do. If you've played Arma Reforger or Battlefield, you'll recognize pieces of both, but the economy is what makes it different.

Everything below is from the beta, so exact numbers and unlock levels can shift in Early Access. The mechanics should hold.

1. You can buy supplies out of dropped crates, and reselling them to a FOB is free money and XP

This is my favorite one for the beginning, because it's a genuine win for everybody involved.

Pilots and drivers can carry crates and fill them with supplies. They put a markup on them, default is 25%, so buying from a crate costs you a bit more than buying at base. Doesn't matter though. Here's the loop:

Buy the supplies from the crate.
Walk to your FOB main station (in the very center of the square on the map) & interact.
Right-click the supplies in your inventory to insert them into the FOB.
You get exactly that dollar amount back as the insertion reward, plus XP.

So the markup costs you nothing in the end, and you got paid in XP for a ten second walk. The pilot who hauled the crate out there gets their small cut. The FOB gets stocked. Nobody loses.

This gets especially useful for pilots who haven't unlocked the bigger helicopter yet. They can't fly a full pallet out, so they're stuck doing the small crates. That's fine. Those small crates are exactly what this loop runs on, and it means the crates sitting around near your FOB actually get used instead of just decorating the landscape.

Works for the normal build supplies, mechanical supplies, ammo supplied and fuel. Get all of it flown out in crates, and then anyone on the ground can convert it into a stocked FOB.

2. Your weapon type decides which XP track you're leveling

I noticed this embarrassingly late in the beta.

Kills feed the XP track that your weapon belongs to. Not the role you think you're playing. The weapon.

Assault rifle (an AK, for example) → Assault XP
SMG → Medic XP
LMG → Support XP, the building track
Sniper → Recon XP

And so on. Which means "leveling Medic" doesn't have to mean spending an evening reviving people. Buy an SMG, play like you normally play, and the medic track fills up on its own.

Once you know this, kit choice becomes a progression decision, not just a combat one. If a track is close to something you want, pick the gun that feeds it.

3. Always buy binoculars. Especially early

They're cheap, and spotting enemies pays Recon XP in addition to $$.

Recon matters more than it looks like from the outside. Some of the best weapons in the game are behind that track, in my opinion. The Mosin in particular is disgustingly effective for what it costs. So you want that track moving even if you never plan to snipe.

And spotting isn't only XP. You get paid when a marked target dies, and you get paid even if someone else kills them. So if there's a sniper on your team, they can see your marks and take the shot, and a decent chunk of money lands in your pocket for doing nothing but looking at a guy through binoculars.

Mark everything. Infantry, vehicles, anything that moves. It's one of the highest value-per-dollar purchases in the early game.

4. Being down is not the same as being dead. Don't give up

You can lie there for a long time before you have to give up. I never measured it exactly, but it's well over a minute.

And the thing about this game is the battle shifts constantly. The situation that looked completely lost when you went down can look totally different in 30, 40, 50 seconds. Somebody pushes, somebody flanks, and suddenly a teammate is standing over you with a defib.

This matters most when you're running an expensive kit. If you weren't looted yet, waiting it out is worth real money. Putting up a bribe can help motivate others to take some risk too.

My rule: unless I'm needed on a new spawn right now, I don't press give up. I just wait and see. Worst case you lose 60 seconds, but most of the time you get revived, save your kit and also don't need transport back to the zone.

5. Use the pre-match time to decide who buys the FOB and where it goes

When the server rolls straight into a new round, you get a bit of time before things actually start. Use it.

You can already see where the zone is and where the towers are. So decide now:

Who is buying a FOB?
Where does it go? "I'm buying, putting it on tower 3." Say it in voice, put it in chat.

It's often worth having more than one. Start with a tower position, and maybe a second one next to it. Depending on where the Control Zone lands, there are a couple of spots on the maps we played that are worth grabbing. The church is one of those. Or the apartment buildings. Just put it inside the CZ (capture zone), not outside of it.

I had several rounds where nobody bought a FOB at all. Everyone piles into the CZ, and there's no FOB to establish. If you miss that window at the start, establishing one later gets significantly harder, because now you're doing it under fire.

What you actually want in the opening minutes: one or two squads, at least 5, at one location. Get resources there, drop the FOB, have two or three builders start building it out, and secure it. That's it. That's a good start. The FOB is what lets you park your spawn vehicle somewhere safe later on, which is the thing that keeps you in the fight for the rest of the match.

There's a lot more to say about building specifically. That's a separate post.

6. Give your squad a job

WARDOGS is no Arma, but some coordination can still make a big difference.

If you can get two or three squads talking to each other, split them by discipline. Squad Hotel is the building squad, for example. Builders go there, supply runners go there, and they coordinate construction and logistics between themselves. Another squad is the run-and-gun squad. That's where people who want to push go, and they coordinate where they're going (most likely the HZ) and shout out where the enemy is moving.

The reason this is so useful isn't just organization. It's that everyone knows who to call.

When you're a builder and your FOB is getting invaded, you don't have to broadcast into the void and hope. You know exactly which squad has the people with guns, you jump in, and you say "we're getting hit at this tower, come help." That's a 5 second communication instead of a 30 second one, and 25 seconds is the whole fight.

Squad A does this, squad B does that, etc.. Simple and effective. Not everyone will partake, but even just a few coordinated peeps can make a big difference.

Even if no organization like this is done, use the team text chat at least. Let your team know when the tower or FOB you've been building out is getting attacked. Let them know when you need supplies. Let them know when you're pulling the Hotzone...

7. Notify your team before you pull the HZ

When you pull the HZ either via the tower mechanic or via the buildable rig in your FOB that takes fuel to run, then notify your team at least a minute before.

To make pulling the HZ efficient, you need to secure the FOB or tower and actually have people in there. Ideally before pulling the HZ to it.

That's the list for now. There's a lot more, especially around building, and I'll probably do a separate post on that once I've had proper time with the Early Access build.

WARDOGS hits Early Access this week: the buyer's briefing

Ted — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 06:30:00 GMT

WARDOGS goes into Steam Early Access on 10 September 2026, so if you're sitting in front of the buy button right now, here's everything we actually know.

I played the Closed Beta Weekend, so some of this comes from hands-on time rather than the press release. What I learned in-game is a separate post, this one is just about whether to spend the money.

The basics

WARDOGS is BULKHEAD's "Tactical All Out Warfare" FPS. 100 players, three rival teams, one central Control Zone inside a 256 km² map. Not a battle royale, not an extraction shooter.

At Early Access launch you get 37 weapons, 21 vehicles and three maps, each with three different variations. Price is $39.99 USD. It's on Steam now.

The pricing promise

$39.99 is not the full release price, and BULKHEAD has been unusually specific about the ladder:

Full release is planned at $59.99.
The meta game isn't in yet, so it came down to $49.99.
Year one is also going to be light on content, so it came down again to the $39.99 you can pay today.
It goes back up to $49.99 during the first year, once those updates actually ship.
It hits $59.99 only at 1.0, with the meta game and the promised content in.

Full release is targeted at roughly 24 months after Early Access launch.

So the earliest supporters pay the least, and every increase is tied to something shipping rather than to a date on a calendar. If you like the direction, today is the cheapest it will ever be. If you're unsure, waiting only costs you money later. Both are fine answers, that's the point of stepped pricing.

The pre-order thing

Pre-orders went live on Steam with the 11 August announcement, and every pre-order came with access to the Closed Beta Weekend that ran 21 to 23 August. Pre-orders for an Early Access game is a weird move, and BULKHEAD said so themselves. Joe Brammer, CEO at BULKHEAD:

"Taking pre-orders for an Early Access game is unusual, and we know some people will question it."

The reasoning was that the pre-order got you hands-on access, so you could judge the state of the game yourself before launch. That beta has come and gone, so there are real impressions floating around now instead of marketing copy. The official Discord is the place to find them.

How busy this is going to be

At the August announcement, WARDOGS had passed 800,000 Steam wishlists. That's a lot for an Early Access launch, and it means launch day servers will be packed.

It also means launch day is the worst possible moment to judge performance and stability. Give it a few days before you decide the game is broken.

Monetization, or the lack of it

During Early Access there's no in-game monetization, with one exception: an optional Supporters Edition with three starter weapon skins, a Little Bird skin, a couple of bobbleheads and a scoreboard tag.

In-game cash and gold bars have to be earned. BULKHEAD has said they'll never sell camouflage, because camo is supposed to show your status, not your wallet. For a game built entirely on an earned-money economy, that isn't a nice-to-have, it's load-bearing.

They've also been clear that this isn't a promise of no monetization ever. After 1.0 and a multi-platform launch there are ongoing costs, and they'd rather have that conversation years early than spring it on people later.

The "10 reasons NOT to buy" video

Easily the strangest marketing move of the year. On 11 August, alongside the Early Access date, BULKHEAD put out a fifteen minute video called "WARDOGS | 10 Reasons NOT to Buy", whose entire job is to talk you out of buying their game. Worth watching in full:

None of the ten are softballs. In order:

Not much content at launch, and a deliberately slow content cadence.
The stepped price.
The player count will drop after launch, and that's normal, not a dying game.
Monetization after 1.0.
Graphics and performance. Their words: if you expect native 4K at 240 FPS, this is not your game.
No linear roadmap.
Their own history as the developer of Battalion 1944, including going dark on that community and later refunding every Kickstarter backer.
Local voice chat that all three teams can hear, banter included.
Partial gamepad support with only slight aim assist, on a PC-first game.
Dying hurts. The trip back to the Control Zone is the punishment, and every choice lands on your balance.

Read that list again. A studio willing to write all of that down in public, before launch, is either very honest or very foolish, and the contents point at honest. It also tells you they know exactly where the rough edges are, which lines up with their stated Early Access priorities: stability, performance, balancing, bug fixes and community-raised issues, plus continued work on the meta game for 1.0.

Buy now or wait?

This bit is my opinion, weigh it accordingly.

Buy now if you want the lowest price this will ever be, you're fine with the rough edges of a fresh Early Access launch, and three-team combined-arms is the specific thing you've been missing.

Wait if you need polish on day one, want more than three maps at launch, or would rather watch a month of feedback on performance and balance before spending $39.99.

Either way it's a bet. The difference here is that the studio has been unusually clear about the odds.

In two days the game is finally out in EA. And I can't wait to grind my way through the ranks and unlock all the goodies.

See you on the battlefield.

Why cash, not kills, is WARDOGS' real scoreboard

Ted — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:15:00 GMT

Most shooters measure you in kills. WARDOGS measures you in money.

The mantra is "cash is earned and cash is king", and I keep coming back to it as the most important decision in the whole design. Cash isn't a score here. It decides what risks you can take, what gear and vehicles you can afford, and how much you stand to lose when it goes wrong.

I haven't played it yet (the closed beta is next weekend), so treat this as reading the design, not a review.

Everything earns. Even standing in the zone

Here's the part that sold me on the whole design: basically everything can earn you cash.

Being inside the Control Zone streams a little money your way the whole time you're in it. Small money, but constant. While in the hotzone it's doubled. Not just the constant money ticks, but also anything else you do earns you double while in the HZ.

The real money is in the actions. Kills, destroying vehicles, reviving teammates. Then flying people around, hauling supplies, spotting for your team, building. If there's a way you want to play the sandbox, there's money in it.

Want to spend a whole match as a pilot taxi? That's a job with a salary. Want to sit on a hill with binoculars and mark targets? Paid, even when someone else takes the shot.

There's no role you get locked into. You decide what this life is about, and the money follows.

XP unlocks it, cash buys it

XP is what gets you access to the new stuff: weapons, vehicles, attachments, even tapes with music to listen to in vehicles.

But access isn't ownership. Everything you take into a match, you still pay dollars for.

So XP fills the shop. Your balance decides what you walk out with.

You set your own stakes when you buy your kit

Every kit you run costs dollars. Every life.

And there's no loot to drop, no haul to carry out. Dying doesn't take a single dollar you've already earned.

What dying does is cut short the earning run of the kit you paid for. The spend already happened. The only question is whether your actions pay it back before you die. Die early and the kit was a loss. Earn it back and you're up.

Killing people is a means, not the goal. The goal is ending the match with more money than you started with, and kills are just one of the ways to get there.

Run the free stuff, no armor and the free weapon, and you'll probably die fast and kill nobody. But you also don't lose a single dollar.

Buy a helicopter and the math flips. Now you need at least one full, successful transport of peeps into the control zone before the thing has paid for itself. Crash it and the loss is ugly.

The more you spend, the more you have to earn to come out ahead. High risk, high reward, by definition. And you pick your risk level at the buy screen, not the game.

BULKHEAD is explicit about it: every death, vehicle purchase, journey and decision shows up in your account balance.

Dying isn't a five second annoyance before respawn. It's the kit you're wearing, minus whatever you earned back while wearing it.
A vehicle stops being a free spawn and turns into an investment you weigh against the payout you're chasing.
A long flank costs time, time in the zone is money, so your route becomes a money decision.

Even if you lose the match... if you made some cash and got some XP, it feels like you achieved something. You're just missing out on a little extra cash that you get for winning the round.

If the balance is right, caution and greed pull against each other for the whole match, and the players who do well are the ones managing risk rather than the ones with the best aim.

Big "if" though. Nobody outside the studio has played enough of this to know whether the economy ends up punishing or thrilling. But the intent is the right one.

Bribes and tips

Cash isn't only for buying gear. You can hand it to other players. Bribes to get your way, tips to reward a good dropoff, revive etc.. Positive reinforcement with actual dollars goes a long way.

The obvious one: you're downed with an expensive kit on. Put up a bribe and your problem becomes a paid job. Somebody on the team takes it, because the risk now has a price on it.

Tips run the other way and matter just as much. Somebody flies you elegently into the HZ, or revives you on the frontlines. Tip them and they'll keep doing it. That's the positive feedback loop that makes WARDOGS special. Not like the modern Battlefield syndrom of medics that just run past you while downed.

What the economy is not

"Cash in a game" makes people think monetization, so to be clear: in-game cash, gold bars and status-based skins will not be purchasable. During Early Access there's no in-game monetization at all, other than an optional Supporters Edition with cosmetic items.

Your balance can only be earned the hard way. That separation is what makes the whole economic design worth taking seriously in the first place.

You can read the framing in BULKHEAD's own words via Team17's reveal coverage, and the Steam page is where the rest should land as Early Access gets closer.

The beta opens next weekend. I'm planning to get poor learning it.

WARDOGS, explained: what this 100-player three-team shooter actually is

Ted — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 09:00:00 GMT

WARDOGS got revealed yesterday over at Team17, and the pitch is short enough to repeat from memory: a "Tactical All Out Warfare" FPS that is deliberately not a battle royale and not an extraction shooter.

That's the part that made me look twice. Pretty much every large-scale shooter of the last few years ended up as one of those two things, so a studio saying "neither" out loud is already interesting.

Here's what we know so far.

Three teams, not two

100 players, split across three rival teams. Not 100 individuals, not fifty duos. Three organized factions fighting over the same piece of ground at the same time.

Three-sided fights behave nothing like two-sided fights. Alliances of convenience become possible. When team A and team B grind each other down on the objective, team C gets to pick the moment, or just not show up at all.

BULKHEAD clearly knows this, because WARDOGS is inspired by the three-way "King of the Hill" mod for Arma 3, and they're developing it together with the original mod creators, Sa-Matra. That lineage is the strongest signal in the whole announcement for me. King of the Hill ran for years, and it ran on stories that a shrinking circle on a map never produces.

The Control Zone sits inside a much bigger map

Every match has a central high-stakes Control Zone, roughly 2x2 km. That zone sits inside a map of 256 square kilometers.

That ratio is the design in one number. The Control Zone is where the fight concentrates. The rest of the map is where you stage, travel, and decide how much you're willing to risk on the way in. If getting there takes time, then getting there is a decision, and the ambush on the road matters as much as the fight at the objective.

Where you're fighting

Derelict industrial mountains in Eastern Europe, and the terrain is destructible.

Destruction is listed right next to construction, which I think matters more than "destructible" on its own. It means the map changes over a match instead of just getting chewed up. The pillars they list are tactical gunplay, combined-arms combat, construction, destruction, large-scale team play and vehicles.

Nothing on that list says battle royale. Nothing says extraction either, and that one is worth saying twice, because a lot of people see "big map plus cash" and assume extraction shooter.

Who's making it

BULKHEAD, a studio from Derby in the UK, founded in 2015. You might know them from The Turing Test and Battalion 1944.

Publisher is Team17, founded 1990, part of everplay Group plc, also home to Hell Let Loose and Worms. If you've played Hell Let Loose you know Team17 can support this kind of audience, and a large-scale combined-arms shooter is a sensible fit for them.

Cash is the thing to watch

"Cash is earned and cash is king."

Cash isn't just a score here. It decides what risks you can take, what gear and vehicles you can afford, and how much you stand to lose. Every death, every vehicle purchase, every trip across the map lands on your account balance.

The loop they describe: take the Control Zone, secure cash, survive long enough to bank it.

I think that's the most under-discussed part of the reveal, so it's getting its own post later.

One more thing: everyone can hear you

Local voice chat is audible across all three teams. Your enemies hear you, you hear them.

Negotiating, bluffing, and giving away your position by complaining about it are all on the table. Put that next to three factions and you get the kind of encounters no scripted system produces.

If that sounds like your thing, the official site, the Steam page and the Discord are where it's happening.

I'll be following this one closely. For once, not a battle royale or another extraction shooter.