Wardogs, a 100-player king-of-the-hill military shooter from developer Bulkhead, launched in Steam Early Access and quickly became one of the platform's top sellers. According to PC Gamer, the game peaked at over 300,000 concurrent players on launch day, while Polygon reported the title surpassed 250,000 players and became the fourth-most played game on Steam, trailing only Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds. Polygon also cited a press release from Bulkhead and publisher Team17 stating that Wardogs sold more than 1 million copies on its first day, following a wishlist run that reached 100,000 within three days of its reveal, 500,000 in May, and 1 million by August.
The surge in players briefly overwhelmed Wardogs' infrastructure. PC Gamer reported that servers became slammed, players were stuck in login queues, and developer Bulkhead eventually took servers offline entirely to work on a fix. In a post on X, the Wardogs account apologized for the disruption, saying it stemmed from 'an issue that wasn't present in the previous beta.' Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer said in a video that the queues were partly due to being 'rate-limited by Valve,' adding that the studio was not yet operating on 'triple-A tier' infrastructure and was in talks with Valve to address it. He advised players to stay in the queue rather than leave. PC Gamer later updated its report to note that it had successfully joined and completed a match, suggesting servers were coming back online.
Bulkhead's Brammer welcomed the launch numbers despite the technical issues, calling it 'mental' to cross a million copies sold and noting that the studio had deliberately avoided hype, at one point publishing a list of reasons not to buy the game, so that players would choose it deliberately. He said Wardogs remains in early access with more fixes and features to come, and encouraged players to keep providing feedback.
Polygon also reported that alongside the Early Access launch, Bulkhead released a trailer inspired by Halo 3's 'Believe' trailer and announced that Wardogs will come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2028, with wishlisting available now on both platforms. The tagline for the launch, 'play like you used to,' references a era of multiplayer gaming described as social, unpredictable, and hard to put down. Brammer described Wardogs as 'ambitious, rough around the edges and still has a long way to go,' saying that reflects what early access should be, and expressed hope that players would get online, talk to each other, and enjoy the kind of shared FPS experience the team grew up with.
For those diving in, PC Gamer also published a beginner's guide describing Wardogs as sitting somewhere between Battlefield and Squad in realism, with elements borrowed from Counter-Strike and extraction shooters. Tips included never leaving spawn without extra magazines, bandages, a sight, and a class gadget; buying loose ammo instead of magazines to save inventory space; avoiding the long drive to the contested zone in favor of helicopter transport; holding Shift to steady aim; using the game's rebuy button for loadouts; not lingering at a team's forward operating base without a task; looting enemy bodies for gear; being cautious about calling for a medic within earshot of enemies; targeting each team's mobile-spawn APC vehicle; and using binoculars to spot enemies for rewards even without other unlocked gadgets.