Morgan Park
While I do appreciate a crunchy milsim here and there, my credentials are modest: 50 hours in Squad, 40 hours of Red Orchestra 2, and 100 hours in Arma 3 (the majority of which was PlayerUnkown’s pre-PUBG battle royale mod).
I’m seated on the edge of a transport helicopter, legs dangling in the breeze, when our pilot flips on the radio to Flight of the Valkyries. “Duh duh duh duh, duh, duh duh duh duh, duh” three passengers sing in non-unison, their VOIP lagging two seconds behind the actual song. The pilot interrupts the performance with an announcement: “Jump quick once you see grass, because we’re headed to the hot zone. How many of you bought a parachute?” The chopper goes silent. “Well then.”
I realize this is the same pilot who taxied me to the frontline at the very beginning of the match over 40 minutes ago. He’s been doing this the whole time, has zero kills, and according to his top five position on the scoreboard, has made over $35,000 of in-game currency. Bullets immediately start whizzing past the chopper as we reach the middle of the gigantic map. Our pilot descends toward an LZ with a practiced corkscrew maneuver that, from the inside, could’ve been mistaken for crashing.
But we land with zero casualties. I touch grass, tip the pilot $25, then get shot in the head about six seconds later. I lay there, bullet in brain, weighing my options: give up and lose the $2,600 I spent on this loadout, or wait for a revive. Were this Battlefield, I’d get impatient and respawn after the first samaritan passed me by. But in this game, money talks: I press F1 to “bribe” anyone in the vicinity. Now, whoever risks their life to save mine gets $100. Ok maybe $150. $300? Yes. At $300 someone took notice, dragged my body to safety, and brought me back.
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That is Wardogs, the upcoming milsim FPS from the team behind Battalion 1944 that’s entering early access in September. I entered the closed playtest held this past weekend with no expectations—I’m a fan of similar games like Squad, but haven’t regularly played a milsim in years. I jumped in because Wardogs has slowly built up a lot of buzz, and five hours of playtime later, I can see why.
Wardogs is PvP only and supports 100-player servers. The main mode in the playtest is three teams (still not sure how they’re dividing 100 players in three) fighting over the same circle of territory on a gigantic map. The team with the most bodies in the zone scores, but you can make your body count as two by occupying the “hot zone” within the circle—that’s where the most killing happens. The format is directly inspired by a popular Arma 3 mod, Arma: King of the Hill.
Money talks
On the spectrum between “hardcore Arma stuff” and “basically Battlefield,” Wardogs finds an exact middle ground. Weapons are snappy and the gunplay is approachable. At a basic level, all you really need to know to contribute is to stand in the capture zone and shoot the other teams—if you get Battlefield, Wardogs won’t be a huge leap.
Peeling back another layer reveals a logistical metagame familiar to milsims: building FOBs (forward operating bases), constructing defenses, transporting supplies, and controlling strategic locations.
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Where Wardogs differs most is its economy. Players earn account-level money for doing anything productive—getting kills, standing in a capture zone, healing teammates, driving folks from A to B—and you spend that cash to gear up. As mentioned, you can also throw around your cash in the form of tips and bribes.
Cash is how Wardogs (like Arma mod before it) harnesses a bit of extraction shooter juice. You fill a shopping cart with thousands of dollars in guns, helmets, vests, magazines, gadgets, and bandages, and then put that gear on the line. You have a personal stake in surviving, and the best chance of doing that is sticking near teammates.
It’s a really smart incentive structure that goes beyond the Battlefield idea of simply rewarding XP for teamplay (Wardogs does that too). It also scratches the part of my brain that enjoys putting together a loadout in extraction shooters. A single life does sort of play out like a raid: you gear up, head out, then try to make more money than you lost. But cash handouts are generous enough that you don’t need to obsess over your wallet: I made a profit in 9/10 lives by simply standing on the objective, healing, and getting the occasional kill. I suspect that’ll change as I unlock more expensive gear and develop a finer taste in helmets.
I’m impressed by the ways Wardogs is both individualistic and team-focused, but developer Bulkhead might need to adjust the numbers throughout early access. The main thrust of the progression is unlocking more guns and vehicles. That gets expensive fast, so I can see some players adopting an overly safe playstyle to maximise their profit per match.
The weekend playtest saw the beginnings of this: My matches had a lot of teammates camping towers with scoped rifles instead of pushing toward the objective. FOB defense is important and all, but I think they just wanted to farm kills from a safe spot.
Class rules
Similarly, I don’t think Wardogs’ loosey-goosey class roles set teams up for success. There are no formal classes, just tools that anyone can buy like rockets, defibrillators, and hammers. A class-based game like Squad ensures that a full squad has a balance of every role, but in Wardogs, it was hard to find somebody who’d gone to the trouble of buying a crowbar to break into enemy FOBs, or who had extra bandages for teammates, or who had even unlocked a rocket launcher at all yet (I still haven’t).
The flip side is that Wardogs is less prescriptive, and freeing: I’m never locked out of sniping because people with quicker load times grabbed those roles first, or boxed into the medic role nobody else wanted. This is an inherently less organized game than its closest comparisons, but that’s also the appeal. There’s work to be done, but Bulkhead has done a decent job of making collaboration natural through establishing an extremely clear objective, simplifying logistics, and setting low prices for the most crucial gear.
Wardogs gives a very confident first impression. It’s entering a two-year early access period with a robust core mode, strong fundamentals, and a distinctive twist. It’s got problems, but it’s the type of shooter that’s immediately attracting dedicated fans with constructive feedback—this thread is pretty spot-on. I really want to play more.
Out of game, Bulkhead is saying all the right things for a savvy studio confident in what it’s making: preorders are open at $40, but Bulkhead encourages buyers to refund if they don’t like the beta that begins on August 21. The studio has also committed to zero monetization throughout early access, and said skins will always be earned, not bought (with the exception of a supporter pack). It’s also worth noting that Wardogs is a PC-first FPS that’ll support community servers. They’re really speaking my language here.
Wardogs is out September 10 in early access.
