How to play WARDOGS: your first hour without losing your $10,000

WARDOGS is $39.99 on Steam, Windows only, Early Access since 10 September 2026, 50 GB on disk. BULKHEAD spent the run-up to launch telling people why they might not want it: a devlog literally titled '10 Reasons NOT to Buy WARDOGS' covered 'our early access strategy, stair stepped pricing and long-term monetisation plans'. The studio's pre-order post adds: 'we encourage you to try out the game and refund if the game doesn't live up to your expectations.' Take that at face value — Steam's refund window is two hours of play.

Two hardware facts before the download. The minimum spec targets '1080p Low @ 60fps (Upscaled)' on a GTX 1660 or RX 590 with 16 GB of RAM. And the game runs anti-cheat that, per the enforcement policy on wardogs.com, monitors 'applications running on your machine during gameplay' and validates 'that the game and your hardware haven't been tampered with'. Linux is not supported; BULKHEAD asked Linux buyers to refund.

Three store facts matter before the first match. The Steam listing carries the Family Sharing category, so a household can share one copy under Steam's usual rules (one player at a time). The only DLC is the $12.99 Supporter Pack — three faction weapon camos (a Valkyra A-91, a Lonestar Bushmaster, a Manticore KH-2002), a Little Bird 'Taxi' camo, a scoreboard icon you can hide, and two bobbleheads — bundled as the $49.99 Supporter Edition. It changes nothing about how the game plays.

And BULKHEAD's refund stance is unusually explicit for a launch: 'If you pre-order to get access to the Closed Beta and decide WARDOGS isn't for you, that's okay – we actively encourage refunding if the beta doesn't live up to your expectations.' The same post says the studio 'will NOT monetize the game at any point during Early Access' beyond that pack.

Play the tutorial. It unlocks the 'This is WARDOGS' achievement, which 72.7% of players had on 13 September, and it is the only structured explanation of the loadout screen you will get. There is also a hidden achievement called 'That was rude' (11.7% of players) whose internal Steam name is ACH_TUTORIAL_PUNCH_KRISTOPHER — we will leave you to work out what that implies about a tutorial character called Kristopher.

The tutorial will not teach you the economy of dying, the towers, the Hot Zone magnet, or the FOB supply chain. Those are the next sections.

You will be on one of three teams: Lonestar ('the heavy-hitters in the Western paramilitary world'), Valkyra ('aims to return the Soviet People's Republic to greatness') or Manticore ('the Kingdom of Persia, Tehran's shadow army'), in BULKHEAD's own lines. No mechanical differences between them are published. The objective is a 2 × 2 km Control Zone placed at random inside a 256 km² map; the team with the most players inside it scores, and 100 points wins.

Inside the Control Zone is the Hot Zone, smaller and shifting. Stand in it and you count as two players for control and earn double cash. The wiki calls it 'both a tactical and economic objective'. For a first match, the simplest useful thing you can do is get into the Control Zone and stay alive there — PCGamesN's money guide recommends exactly that with a cheap kit: 'attempt to stay put inside the zone for passive income.'

The pattern the press and the changelog both point to is: cheap kit until you have a cushion. PCGamesN's money guide says the base rifle 'can be purchased from the vendor for nothing — it's only the ammunition that costs money, and it isn't much', and recommends staying in the zone with that setup and looting enemy bodies for upgrades 'because the price of admission for this basic loadout is so low'. Compare that to the Season 1 prices for the things new players covet: a Little Bird with miniguns is $50,000, a 6–10x MOA scope is $45,000, the Artillery Tank is $500,000 and needs Career level 90.

Loadouts are per life. The Steam description: 'Each life, you purchase a custom loadout from a wide selection of weapons, gear, utility, and vehicles.' The 'Big Spender' achievement is for spending $100,000 on a single loadout — 0.1% of players had done it three days in, which tells you how far the ceiling is from the floor.

The wiki's list of paid actions is short: reviving squadmates, transporting friendly players, killing enemies, spotting enemies, controlling the objective. PCGamesN turns that into methods a new player can actually do.

Hold the zone with the free rifle. Passive income for presence, doubled in the Hot Zone. Build at the tower nearest your spawn. 'Grab yourself a hammer from the vendor and hitch a ride to the tower nearest your spawn… Each successfully constructed building earns you Support XP and a bit of cash.' Drive people. 'Ferrying people to and from the zone earns you a decent chunk of change, and any assists your passengers get after you drop them off award you bonus cash.' Use a spawned car before buying one. Park the mobile spawn point. 'If you can drive the mobile spawn point to a safe location inside the zone, you'll earn a decent wedge of cash. Any subsequent spawns to your mobile spawn point will also net you additional money.' The money guide covers the rest, including the supply-crate shop for pilots.

Squads have no size limit ('Unlimited!' in the February FAQ) and give you squad voice, extra UI and vehicle locking. Proximity voice is always on for nearby players — BULKHEAD's phrase is that it makes 'the sandbox 100% player-driven', and the Steam description mentions using it 'to either talk tactics with teammates or troll enemy players'. If your microphone is quiet, that is a known enough problem that a Steam community guide is titled 'WARDOGS – Low Microphone Volume / Mic Being Quiet Fix'; the settings guide has what the patch notes say about voice.

The Season 1 changelog fixed 'voice cutting out permanently after a failed join' and added 'a visible communication status', so if you cannot hear anyone, check that indicator before assuming the server is empty.

Buying a helicopter before you can fly one. The changelog notes a 'Z20 Lakota balance pass, and a fix for sluggish pitch' and that 'helicopter input damping now applies to every input device' — flight is a skill with a learning curve, and a crashed $35,000 Lakota is $35,000 gone. A community guide called 'how to fly helicopters' exists for a reason.

Selling junk for XP. Selling a supply-crate item worth under $75 now gives 1 XP instead of 25; the loop is closed. Exploiting a cash bug. Patch 0.11: timed ban and 'we will reset your cash and XP to 0'. Making a tutorial about a cash bug: permanent ban. Expecting to unlock the big items quickly. BULKHEAD's own words: the top 5% 'will need to grind'; level 20 is 250,000 XP.

Once the first match is behind you, the money guide is the natural next page; the towers guide explains the one strategic system the tutorial skips; the classes guide shows the six tracks and what each level unlocks. If the game will not start or the servers are not showing, the crashing and servers pages in the Early Access hub cover what the patch notes and community guides say.