Wardogs

Developer

Bulkhead Interactive (Derby, United Kingdom)^[1][3]

Publisher

Team17^[1]

Engine

Unreal Engine 5^[1]

Platforms (at early access)

Microsoft Windows (Steam); Linux support in progress^[1][7]

Status

Early access (paid); full release planned^[1][2]

Early access price

Standard Edition US$39.99; Supporter Edition US$49.99^[3][7]

Match shape

100 players split into three teams, contesting a control zone on a destructible map^[1]

SteamDB reviews (13 September 2026)

79.3% positive of 43,459 reviews; SteamDB rating Mostly Positive (78.09%)^[7]

All-time peak concurrent players

400,196 on 12 September 2026 (SteamDB)^[7]

Overview

Wardogs is a multiplayer first-person shooter developed by the British studio Bulkhead Interactive and published by Team17.^[1] Built on Unreal Engine 5, it was released on Steam in early access on 10 September 2026,^[1][2] and versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are scheduled for 2028.^[1]

Described as a military simulation, the game is set in a fictional range of abandoned mountains in Eastern Europe.^[1] Early access is a paid product: the Standard Edition launched at US$39.99, and the Supporter Edition, which adds only cosmetic items, at US$49.99.^[3]

Because Wardogs is still in early access, this article describes the early-access build rather than a finished release.^[1][2]

Gameplay

In a Wardogs match, one hundred players in three teams fight on a 256-square-kilometer map over a 2x2 kilometer control zone.^[1] The team with the most players inside the zone wins a point, and a player inside a marked HotZone counts double.^[1]

Every player starts a round with US$10,000 in in-game cash, and a bank balance with red and green profit-and-loss figures sits at the top right of the screen.^[1] Cash can be wagered and traded for gold bars; speaking about the in-game economy, Bulkhead's CEO, Joe Brammer, said that cash is the best anti-cheat.^[1] The game has no battle pass and no microtransactions.^[1]

Bulkhead has said the early-access version is fully playable and represents the core vision of the game, with content limited to 100-player three-team play, large-scale maps, cash and XP progression, and proximity voice chat.^[2] The launch build has three maps with three variations each, 37 weapons and 21 vehicle types.^[3]

Development

Bulkhead Interactive is based in Derby, United Kingdom, and was founded in 2015 by graduates of the University of Derby.^[3] Development of Wardogs began in Derby and took years.^[1]

Bulkhead first pitched Wardogs to Tencent with a budget of around £10 million to £12 million, and Tencent rejected the pitch.^[1][3] The publishing deal with Team17 followed.^[1] Bulkhead laid off staff during development, which affected QA testing.^[1][3]

The developers expect Wardogs to stay in early access for around one to two years, with the price rising at full release.^[2] Linux support through Proton is in progress.^[1]

Each early-access season brings progression wipes and experimental changes to game mechanics, used to test features and player behavior.^[1]

Announcement and pre-launch events

Team17 announced Wardogs on 5 February 2026 as a Tactical All Out Warfare game, and Bulkhead posted a gameplay trailer on its YouTube channel on 6 June 2026.^[1] On 3 September 2026 Bulkhead held its own showcase, The FPS Games Show, on Twitch, after reportedly being quoted US$300,000 for a 60-second slot at another gaming event.^[1][3]

Sources differ on when the first closed beta began: 22 August 2026 according to Wikipedia,^[1] 21 August 2026 according to Tech Times.^[3] It drew nearly 500,000 unique players and peaked at 105,774 concurrent players on Steam, and the game's director, Howard Philpott, said the reaction from the FPS community during the first closed beta had been insane.^[3] The second closed beta ran from 3 to 6 September 2026 and, according to SteamDB, peaked at 245,118 concurrent players at 17:38 UTC on 5 September 2026.^[3]

At The FPS Games Show on 3 September 2026, Bulkhead announced a US$100,000 Clip Contest, with entries due by 23:59 BST on 8 October 2026.^[3] BisectHosting is the game's server hosting partner.^[1]

Launch and reception

SteamDB recorded Wardogs' release at 15:58:01 UTC on 10 September 2026, so depending on time zone the game went live on 10 or 11 September 2026 (9 am PST, 12 pm EST, 5 pm BST and 6 pm CEST on 10 September; 2 am AEST and 4 am NZST on 11 September).^[1][7] Within hours of launch it reached number one on the Steam charts, competing directly for the top spot with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which entered its own early access the same day.^[1]

Tech Times noted that beta and early-access player counts measure different things: the closed betas ran on a free Playtest client open only to pre-order holders, while early access requires a $39.99 purchase.^[3] Brammer publicly wrote that he expected the game to drop to a floor of 5,000 concurrent players after launch before recovering.^[3] On launch day the servers temporarily struggled to queue matches under heavy load and Bulkhead took the game offline to fix the problems, which Brammer attributed to Valve rate-limiting the title.^[1]

Bulkhead and Team17 announced on 15 September 2026 that Wardogs had sold more than two million copies within five days of launch, having reached one million within a day.^[9] In a statement, Brammer called selling two million in under five days completely ridiculous.^[9]

As read on 13 September 2026, SteamDB listed 43,459 reviews for Wardogs, 34,447 (79.3%) positive and 9,012 (20.7%) negative.^[7] SteamDB's own rating that day was Mostly Positive at 78.09%, a weighted score that is not the same figure as the 79.3% positive share.^[7] Steam's store page on the same date reported 27,404 English-language user reviews, 84% of them positive (Very Positive); it counts English-language reviews only, so its total differs from SteamDB's.^[2] SteamDB also showed 262,604 players in the game at the time of reading, an all-time peak of 400,196 concurrent players on 12 September 2026, and a 24-hour peak of 400,196.^[7] That day the game ranked first in Steam's top sellers, sixth in daily active users and third in wishlist activity.^[7]

Technical details

The Steam listing records 14 supported languages, including English, and notes that the game uses kernel-level anti-cheat software.^[2] Before launch, Wardogs had more than one million Steam wishlists.^[1]

Compared with Battlefield 6

SteamDB's readings of Steam on 13 September 2026 set Wardogs beside Battlefield 6.^[7][8] They catch the two games at very different points: Wardogs had been on Steam for three days and Battlefield 6 for eleven months, so the player figures describe different moments in each game's life rather than the same one.^[7][8]

Videos

Two of the videos are the developer's and publisher's own marketing material: Bulkhead's FPS Games Show 2026 segment (August 2026)^[4] and Team17's reveal trailer (February 2026).^[5] The third is a player's recording of an alpha playtest (August 2026).^[6]

1:36 A round played end to end An unedited alpha playtest match uploaded in August 2026, a month before the early-access release, from the squad's deployment onto the map.

0:39 The reveal Team17's reveal trailer from February 2026, the game's first public showing, from its first firefight.

Timeline

1. 2026-02-05 Team17 announces Wardogs as a Tactical All Out Warfare game.^[1]
2. 2026-06-06 Bulkhead releases a gameplay trailer on its YouTube channel.^[1]
3. 2026-08-21 First closed beta begins (Tech Times gives 21 August 2026 as the start date).^[3]
4. 2026-08-22 First closed beta begins (Wikipedia gives 22 August 2026 as the start date).^[1]
5. 2026-08-23 First closed beta peaks at 105,774 concurrent players on Steam.^[3]
6. 2026-09-03 Bulkhead's The FPS Games Show is livestreamed on Twitch.^[1][3]
7. 2026-09-05 Second closed beta peaks at 245,118 concurrent players at 17:38 UTC.^[3]
8. 2026-09-10 Wardogs enters early access on Steam; the game reaches the number one position on the Steam charts within hours.^[1][7]
9. 2026-09-12 Wardogs records an all-time peak of 400,196 concurrent players on Steam.^[7]
10. 2026-09-13 SteamDB records 43,459 reviews for Wardogs, with 79.3% positive and a SteamDB rating of Mostly Positive 78.09%.^[7]