Every so often a multiplayer shooter arrives that makes the rest of the genre look a little tired. WARDOGS, from British studio BULKHEAD and publisher Team17, is that game in 2026. It entered Steam Early Access on September 10, sold more than two million copies in under a week, peaked at 428,666 concurrent players on its first weekend and has held a “Very Positive” user rating since. After two weeks and a lot of matches, here is where it stands.
What WARDOGS is
WARDOGS is a 100-player tactical shooter built on Unreal Engine 5. The twist is the team structure: instead of two sides, every match splits the lobby into three factions of 33. Each round takes place in a 2 km by 2 km Control Zone carved out of a 256 km² map, and teams score points by having more players inside the zone than their rivals. Everyone starts with $10,000 to spend on loadouts, gear and vehicles, and the environment can be torn apart with enough explosives.
The Standard Edition costs $39.99, with a $49.99 Supporter Edition that adds cosmetics. It is PC only for now, and BULKHEAD, previously best known for the competitive shooter Battalion 1944, has already said a second season is due roughly a month after launch.
The three-team format is the star
No front line
In a two-team shooter you always know where the enemy is. In WARDOGS you never quite do. Push hard toward the objective and the third faction may arrive behind you; hold back and the other two teams may settle their fight and turn on you. The result is a constant sense of tension that most large-scale shooters lose after the first few minutes of a match.
Temporary alliances
The best moments are the ones nobody planned. When one faction runs away with the score, the other two tend to drift into an unspoken truce to drag the leader back, and that truce collapses the moment one of them edges ahead. It happens without a word in text chat, and it produces the kind of stories that have filled Twitch and YouTube since launch.
The economy matters
The cash system rewards more than kills. Players earn money for capturing ground, building defences and moving supplies, which gives support roles real value. A well-timed truck run can swing a round as much as a sniper on a rooftop.
Performance and servers
For an Early Access game running a 256 km² map with 100 players, WARDOGS performs well. On a mid-range PC it held a steady frame rate at 1080p with sensible settings, and the heavier stutters we saw appeared during large explosions rather than in normal movement. The launch weekend was a different story on the server side: queues ran long for the first few days, and there were occasional disconnects during peak hours. BULKHEAD added capacity quickly, and by the second week queue times had largely settled.
Linux players should note that the game does not currently run through Proton, because its kernel-level anti-cheat cannot operate inside Proton’s compatibility layer. BULKHEAD has told Linux players to refund if they bought it expecting otherwise.
Launch-week problems
Balance
Vehicles can feel too strong in open terrain, and the economy occasionally snowballs in favour of a faction that grabs an early lead. Neither is surprising in Early Access, and both are the sort of thing patches exist to fix.
Cheating
The bigger worry is the one every hit shooter faces. With hundreds of thousands of players arriving at once, the grey market followed quickly, and forums were discussing Wardogs cheats with ESP within days of launch. In a three-faction match a single player with wallhacks affects 66 opponents rather than a handful, so reports of suspiciously accurate players spread fast through the community.
How BULKHEAD is responding
To its credit, the studio has been unusually direct. Before launch BULKHEAD said it had zero tolerance for cheaters and promised permanent bans, including for any future accounts linked to a banned player. The game uses kernel-level anti-cheat (the Steam listing names Easy Anti-Cheat), and on September 18 the studio disabled Steam Family Sharing after banned players used it to get straight back into matches. CEO Joe Brammer summed up the thinking bluntly, suggesting that the $40 price tag is itself one of the best deterrents, since every ban costs a cheater another copy. Anyone curious about what the other side of that arms race looks like can find it documented on pages such as SkyCheats’ Wardogs page, and it is a useful reminder of why detection updates matter as much as new content. How BULKHEAD keeps pace through the next few seasons will shape the game’s reputation as much as any map or vehicle.
What we’d like to see next
More variety in Control Zone terrain, clearer feedback on how the economy pays out, better tools for community server admins and a steady stream of anti-cheat updates would all go a long way. Season 2, with new weapons and vehicles, should give a first sense of how quickly the studio can iterate.
The verdict
WARDOGS is unfinished, occasionally unbalanced and still fighting the problems that come with a huge launch. It is also the most interesting multiplayer shooter we have played this year. The three-faction format turns every match into a shifting negotiation, the economy gives every role a reason to exist, and the sheer scale of a 100-player fight still impresses. If you enjoy large-scale shooters and can live with Early Access rough edges, it is easy to recommend.
Score: 8/10. Great ideas, a strong foundation and a studio that is listening, held back only by balance issues and the cheating problem it will need to keep beating. For ongoing coverage of anti-cheat changes across WARDOGS and other big shooters, sites like SkyCheats track each update as it lands, and we will be back with a fresh look once Season 2 arrives.
Be First to Comment