In its first three weeks of early access, Bulkhead's NZ$63 shooter out-earned EA Sports FC 27 and Fortnite on PC. Here's what Newzoo's September charts show, and why the hard part starts now.
Wardogs was the top PC game by revenue in September, ahead of Fortnite and EA Sports FC 27, per Newzoo.
It also hit 11th for PC monthly active users and 15th on the year-to-date spending chart.
It did it at US$39.99 in early access, with an estimated 3.5 million Steam copies sold by the end of September.
On console, FC 27 and NBA 2K27 led, with Marvel's Wolverine fourth.
Season 2 stumbled, and Season 3 is reportedly set for 12 November; Bulkhead hasn't officially announced the date.
A NZ$63 early access shooter just out-earned FIFA. Newzoo’s September charts are out, and Wardogs, the game half the GetRekt Discord has been living in since launch, finished the month as the number one PC game by revenue. It beat Fortnite, it beat EA Sports FC 27, and it did it in its first three weeks.
Newzoo shared the charts exclusively with GamesIndustry.biz. They cover spending in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, so they’re not a perfect read on our part of the world, but they’re the best monthly snapshot of where the money is going.
Wardogs launched at US$39.99 (NZ$62.99 or A$54.95 on Steam right now), about half the price of a new FC or Call of Duty. It still sold a truckload. It was reported to have passed a million sales on day one, and GameDiscoverCo estimates it had shifted around 3.5 million copies on Steam by the end of September, with concurrent players peaking at about 420,000.
Newzoo analyst Mert Şahin pointed straight at the price tag, saying mid-priced hits like Wardogs show “games don’t need a full price tag to compete.” He also reckons a lot of publishers rushed their big games out before GTA 6 lands on 19 November, which made September a very crowded month to stand out in.
Worth remembering: that price isn’t staying put. Bulkhead has been upfront that Wardogs will get more expensive as early access goes on, with the CEO bluntly telling anyone who doesn’t like that not to buy it. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, now is the cheapest it’s going to be.
October has been bumpier. Season 2 launched on 15 October with a full progression wipe, but Bulkhead sped up progression at the same time, and the sweats were back in tanks within days. The studio admitted it was “the wrong call” and pulled Season 3 forward. Shacknews reports Season 3 will start on 12 November, based on a Steam comment from the studio’s CEO. We haven’t seen that date in an official Bulkhead announcement yet, so treat it as likely, not locked in.
Players haven’t gone anywhere, though. Wardogs had more than 130,000 people playing on Steam when we checked on Thursday morning NZ time, good for top 10 on Steam’s most-played list.
We’re biased, sure. This is the game our Discord plays every night. But beating FC 27 and Fortnite on PC revenue in your first month, in early access, with a forty-dollar price tag, is a genuinely massive result for a studio most people hadn’t heard of a year ago. Plenty of AAA publishers would kill for that chart position.
The hard part starts now. The launch rush is over, Season 2’s progression was a mess, and GTA 6 is about to suck the oxygen out of every other game for a month. Bulkhead has shown it’ll own its mistakes, which is more than most studios manage. If Season 3 lands clean and the price rises come with real content, Wardogs has a shot at being around for years. If not, it’ll be a very lucrative September and not much else.
Still playing Wardogs, or has Season 2 burned you out? Tell us in the comments, or find a squad in the GetRekt Discord. We queue Red or Green. Never Blue.
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