Why this page exists
WARDOGS is pre-launch. As of this writing, the game has only had a Closed Beta (21–24 Aug 2026) — Early Access launches 10 September 2026. Every price, level requirement, and stat in this guide series reflects beta-era numbers, gathered from community wikis that datamined or played the beta. Bulkhead has already confirmed some changes for Early Access (e.g. weapon count going from 33 in Alpha to 37 at EA), so treat every number here as a snapshot, not a promise.
What's still to come
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 3 Sep 2026 | Bulkhead presentation. Announced as a major showing; not confirmed as another public test. |
| 10 Sep 2026 | Steam Early Access launch, $39.99. |
Expect the 3 September presentation to date some of this material, and Early Access to date more of it. Bulkhead has said Early Access will prioritise "stability, performance, balancing, bug fixes" — so balance movement is the plan, not an exception.
A note on fan-tool figures. Community planners sometimes display values our guides deliberately don't, such as weight-class thresholds. We checked one such figure (a sprint-penalty threshold in kilograms) and could not corroborate it on the site's own pages or anywhere else, so it stays out of Manage Loadout Weight. If a tool shows you a threshold and we don't, that's why — not an oversight.
Known patch history
Balance has already moved once, and it will keep moving. What we know changed:
Closed Beta patch, 14 August 2026 — the most recent notes at time of writing:
| Change | Effect on these guides |
|---|---|
| Flakpanzer Gepard removed from unlock tracks and the vendor | Struck from Vehicles and the builder |
| Pistols buffed — damage improved across the board | Sidearm advice unchanged; the $5,000 unlock is still the barrier |
| AK74, Galil, M4, FAL handling improved in their effective ranges | Reinforces the AK74 as the best early unlock |
| 122mm damage to air vehicles reduced | Aircraft are harder to one-shot; noted in Countering Armor and Aircraft |
| Unlock costs raised across every class; level-up costs up past level 15 | Our unlock figures may predate this — see the caveat in What to Unlock First |
| Sniper kill-streak bonuses removed in No Man's Land | Doesn't affect the Hot Zone distance multipliers in Make Money |
| Garage magazines now require proper unlocks | Reflected in Attachments |
| Armour quantified: 30/40/55/65%, durability 80–300, 100 HP | Now in Beat Armour |
| Ghillie confirmed concealment-only, no damage reduction | Flagged in Gear |
| End-of-round refund set at 0.9 | Now in The Economy |
| Cycle-sights bind moved to Left-Alt; Background FPS Limit added | Settings & Controls |
| FAL $5,500 → $6,500; MGL-40 $3,500 → $6,000 | Both tables already carry the new prices |
Expect more. Bulkhead has said Early Access will prioritise "stability, performance, balancing, bug fixes" — balance changes are the plan, not an exception. Any number here can move on 10 September.
Primary community sources used
- **MetaForge — the single largest source behind
our reference tables. Their WARDOGS database supplies the bulk of our attachment catalogue (suppressors, muzzle devices, bipods, foregrips, optics and magazines), the per-item inventory footprints behind the Loadout Builder's bag-capacity feature, and the vendor prices that corrected several errors on these pages. If you want deeper per-item stats than we publish — ballistics, damage falloff, hit multipliers — go to MetaForge directly**; they do that far better than we do, and this hub is not a substitute for it.
- wardogshub.gg — weapons, vehicles, and equipment catalogues with prices
- wardogswiki.com — gameplay mechanics, FOB, mortar, and economy guides
- wardogs.zone — vehicle database
- wardogs.fandom.com — game mechanics reference
- wardogs.games — squad role breakdowns, price/edition articles
- gamingwithdaopa.ellatha.com — DaOpa fansite, detailed role and progression guides
- wardogs.wiki — development timeline, proximity voice chat, progress-wipe mechanics
- Wikipedia — Wardogs (video game) — release/studio background
- GameWatcher — hardcore mode details, metagame explainer
What's confirmed vs. provisional
Confirmed by Bulkhead/Team17 directly (dev statements, official trailers/roadmap):
- Launch window (Early Access 10 Sep 2026), pricing tiers ($39.99 / $49.99)
- No battle pass, no pay-to-win
- 37 weapons and 21 vehicles planned for Early Access
- The Black Market, Vault, Player Skills, and Challenge System as planned metagame additions
- Fighter jets as a future roadmap item (not in Early Access at launch)
Community-datamined / beta-observed (everything else in this reference — most individual prices, level gates, and item names):
- Subject to rebalancing before or during Early Access
- Some items are explicitly listed by community sources as "unavailable" or "locked (requirement not yet documented)" — this guide preserves that uncertainty rather than guessing
Figures we found and deliberately did not publish
Two numbers exist in community writing that we've left out on purpose. Both are the same failure shape: a specific, quotable figure that we cannot corroborate, attached to a mechanic that is otherwise real.
- Sprint-penalty weight threshold. One community tool's changelog cites a 27 kg threshold. We could not corroborate it on their own pages or anywhere else, and the most careful wiki explicitly declines to publish thresholds at all. Loadout Weight therefore gives the shape and the arithmetic instead of a number.
- Control Zone scoring interval. Sources directly contradict each other: wardogs.wiki states "Every 30 seconds, the team with the most players in that objective receives one point", while wardogshandbook.com states "1 point per cycle, roughly every 10–15 seconds." Those imply very different match lengths at 100 points to win. We report neither as fact.
Drilling towers — well corroborated, unofficially
The drilling tower mechanic is worth a note on its own, because it is the largest thing in these guides with no official documentation at all. Bulkhead's Steam store description covers the Control Zone and Hot Zone and never mentions towers.
What made us confident enough to publish it: five independent community sources describe the same mechanic in the same shape (capture a tower terminal → reveals one code digit → complete code → pull the Hot Zone to that tower), plus a first-hand player write-up on the Steam community hub. Where they diverge — durations, cooldowns, and whether all towers must be held simultaneously — the guide says so explicitly rather than choosing.
How to keep this current
When Early Access launches (10 Sep 2026), re-check the weapons, vehicles, and equipment tables against the sources above (or their EA-updated successors) and update prices/level gates as needed. The structure of these guides (one MDX file per topic) is designed so a single page can be revised without touching the rest of the series.
This page is itself part of The Kennel's WARDOGS Basics guide series.