Overview and introduction
Wardogs is a tactical multiplayer shooter developed by BULKHEAD and published by Team17, WARDOGS puts up to 100 players into three teams fighting over a single objective. There's no class system and no set roles. Every player buys their own loadout each match with in-game cash, covering everything from rifles and armor to trucks and helicopters. Team17 markets it as "Tactical All Out Warfare," and the game leans into that label by avoiding two of the genre's most common templates: it isn't a battle royale, and it isn't an extraction shooter. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 and is available on PC through Steam Early Access.
Setting and Premise
There's no single-player campaign, no story missions, nothing scripted to follow. The whole game happens on one enormous map: a crumbling industrial stretch of mountains somewhere in Eastern Europe, roughly 256 square kilometres, most of it destructible. Each match drops a Control Zone somewhere inside that space, a 2x2 kilometre patch of ground that becomes everyone’s point of interest.
- Buildings and terrain can be blown apart or reshaped mid-match.
- The Control Zone lands in a new spot each match, so the map rarely plays out the same way twice.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- A different shape of match - most big shooters right now are chasing either a shrinking-circle battle royale or a loot-and-extract loop. WARDOGS does neither. Three teams grind over one Control Zone for the length of the match, and the fight rarely lets up because there's always another team after the same ground.
- Cash instead of a battle pass - there is no weapon or experience leveling. You EARN MONEY! Everyone starts with $10,000. Whatever gets earned during a match gets spent on that match's loadout. You get your cash for almost everything. From reviving teammates to capturing objective. Team play is encourage before anything else.
- A map made to be broken - the 256 km² map supports infantry, armor, and helicopters, and most of what's standing on it can be torn down. With 100 players split across three teams, fights sprawl rather than staying contained to one building or trench line.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Matches put up to 100 players into three teams, all trying to hold the same zone. The main gamemode is King of The Hill that was inspired by a community-made Arma 3 mod that's been around for years.
Whichever team holds the most players inside the zone earns points
- Standing in the smaller “hot zone” inside it counts double
- First team to 100 points wins the match
Every player starts with $10,000 and decides what to spend it on – rifles, armor, medkits, trucks, helicopters. Fighter jets are on BULKHEAD's roadmap but aren't in the game yet. That balance doesn't reset when the match ends – it carries into the next one, so whatever's left over after buying a loadout just stays in your pocket. Kills, revives, logistics runs, and holding the Control Zone all add to it, which means the helicopter you buy next round might be funded by cash you earned two matches ago.
Factions
Three teams face off in every match, but there's no lore page for any of them. No backstory, no named leaders, nothing to read up on. What decides your role is whatever you buy at the loadout screen, not a class picked at character creation. Compare that to Squad or Battlefield, where a rifleman stays a rifleman for the whole match – in WARDOGS, the same player might carry a rifle one round and fly a helicopter the next.
System Requirements
Right now, PC through Steam is the only option – there's no console version. Steam lists two tiers, and both call for 16 GB of RAM plus roughly 50 GB of free storage.