The hottest FPS in town, Wardogs, is holding one last beta before it hits early access from September 3 to 6. Buzz for the 100-player milsim has far eclipsed the expectations of developer Bulkhead, who says Wardogs has surpassed a million wishlists on Steam.
Bulkhead was planning to keep the final beta a surprise drop for its upcoming FPS Games Show livestream, but decided to spill the beans itself after fans got the wrong idea from teasers. The popular theory was that Bulkhead was preparing an open beta that anyone could join, but game director Joe Brammer clarified on X this week that you'll need to pre-order for $40 to get in, and explained why:
"In this situation, what we’re doing is starting a controlled fire and seeing what burns the fastest to help us prevent and manage a blaze if one does occur in the future,' Brammer said. "If we open the flood gates, very very few systems hold up to the numbers we hit in our first beta, having 100,000 players spam a queue, isn’t that useful to us. What we want to know is really boring stuff, like “what happens when over 100k players are in the server browser, and everyone is clicking on servers."
Basically, Bulkhead is treating the beta like a true stress test—"Obliterate our servers," as the latest trailer dares. Going fully open would be a useful test were Wardogs free-to-play, but what they'd rather do is test against the audience size that's likely to show up on the September 10 early access launch.
The second WARDOGS Closed Beta starts soon.September 3rd | 18:00 UTC | @FPSGamesShowShare your best moments, clips or streams, and tag us.Pre-Order to Access:🔗https://t.co/bXo2yiosVM pic.twitter.com/8ivHmmBXAySeptember 2, 2026
And Bulkhead will have its hands full with closed beta participants, if past tests are any indication. A playtest held a few weeks ago had nearly 500,000 players and crammed servers so hard that nobody could play for the first hour.
Today, Bulkhead enabled the firing range to let players test out guns 24 hours before the beta begins, and tens of thousands of people are showing up to shoot dummies and drive humvees around in circles, to Bulkhead's disbelief.
WHY ARE 25,000 OF YOU GETTING INTO THE SHOOTING RANGE, YOU PEOPLR ARE CRAZY.September 2, 2026
"WHY ARE 25,000 OF YOU GETTING INTO THE SHOOTING RANGE, YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY," Brammer posted today.
The firing range would eventually peak at 30,000 today. Wardogs has its issues out of the gate, but its format is unique and fundamentals very strong. People really want back in, and I'm among them.
