For a month we’ve been documenting the Lonestar crisis on Blue Team Watch. The lobby graphic says it all: Valkyra 33/33, Manticore 33/33, Lonestar 4/33.
Time to come clean. Those four were us.
But help is on the way. Bulkhead has looked at the Blue Team, looked at its win rate, and decided the only thing left to try is cold, hard cash. In Season 2, which lands on 15 October, Wardogs will literally pay you to play Lonestar. In Bulkhead’s own words: “Lonestar has cash… and Lonestar needs you.” For the first time since early access opened, the GetRekt crew is going to have teammates. Paid ones. We’re not proud. We’ll take it.
How bad has it been?
According to the numbers Bulkhead shared, Blue has been winning about 10% of matches. Red (Valkyra) wins around 40% and Green (Manticore) around 50%. All three factions are mechanically identical: same guns, same economy, no stat differences. Bulkhead admits Lonestar’s uniform visibility and some spawns haven’t helped, but after looking at the data it says sentiment is the biggest reason people won’t play Blue. Players have been idling on the faction screen for minutes rather than fill a Lonestar slot, which, if you’ve read our original report, is exactly how lobbies stall.
PC Gamer put it neatly: Blue’s infamy may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. One bad night on Lonestar, the reputation sticks, veterans dodge it, and Blue fills up with whoever clicked the first option on the menu. We call that “the loop”. Bulkhead calls the fix a “social experiment”.
The bribe, in full
For Season 2 only, Lonestar players get:
- Bonus cash and XP for winning, which on current form will be a collector’s item
- Cash and XP multipliers, so even a Blue loss pays a bit better
Bulkhead hasn’t said how big the bonuses are, but it has already warned that community server hosts caught exploiting the faction bonus will be punished. So no, you can’t spin up a private Blue-only server and farm it. We checked. (We didn’t check.) It’s also fixing the genuine gripes:
- Lonestar uniforms are getting desaturated so Blue stops standing out like a hi-vis vest at a paintball range
- Every faction’s spawns move on Bakurani
- A catch-up discount: any team 40 or more points behind second place gets 20% off at the vendor. Bulkhead stresses it applies to all teams, not just Lonestar. Sure.
The catch
Season 2 is also Wardogs’ first progression wipe. Everyone goes back to level 1. So Bulkhead is going to pay you to join the Blue Team, at the exact moment every player in the game is a fresh recruit. Nobody will know what they’re doing. For one beautiful week, everyone gets to be Lonestar.
What else is in Season 2
From Bulkhead’s official Season 2 preview:
- Four new guns: the TCX Spear assault rifle, M14 DMR, PP-19 Bizon SMG and Evo-3 Ultra LMG, plus new attachments
- Four new vehicles: the Wolf-110 and Wolf-110 Assault (with a ring-mounted M2 Browning), a T-72 (slower than the Leopard but cheaper and far more fuel-efficient) and a Flakpanzer Gepard for shooting down helicopters
- Molotovs, thrown overarm or underarm, for damage and area denial
- Three new buildables: an MG nest, a large metal shelter, and “a step. Made of wood.” Truly, a game-changer.
- Rain, which changes visibility, engagement ranges and sound
- A Wager Vendor that lets you bet your own cash on hitting objectives, like kills in the hotzone, within a set number of deaths, with a live tracker above the minimap. On Blue, we recommend the under.
Details from the devlog
Bulkhead’s “Road to Season 2” devlog (above) recaps Season 1 and teases what’s next. Between the video and the preview notes, a few things are worth knowing before you drop in:
- The T4 helmet is no longer free real estate. The Super Heavy helmet now comes with muffled audio, a restricted field of view, and fogs over when you sprint. Players are describing it as peering through a letterbox. You’ll be harder to kill and you’ll hear and see a lot less. Heavy and Super Heavy helmets do get extra suppression resistance to compensate.
- Thunder is a weapon. It’s synced across the whole server and can briefly mask footsteps, so expect flanks timed to the rumble.
- Rain reacts to the battlefield, including damaged and destroyed buildings. Hence the large shelter.
- The infrared rangefinder now runs on batteries. Pack spares.
- The Wager Vendor might not last. Bulkhead calls it a genuinely experimental first pass and says it could pull it mid-season if it turns out to be too exploitable. Get your bets in early.
- Weapon roles are getting firmer through damage, recoil and suppression changes, alongside more rewards for teamplay and logistics.
Some context: Wardogs has passed 3 million sales since early access opened on 10 September, and it’s up for Best Early Access Game at the Golden Joystick Awards (community voted). Full patch notes and the proper Season 2 trailer land early next week. Bulkhead even ran a pre-season press conference, which is a first for us.
Our take
Paying people to pick the unpopular team is hilarious, slightly desperate, and probably going to work. PC Gamer reckons Blue could become the most popular faction overnight, and they’re likely right. Nothing fills a lobby like free money. The real win is the stuff that should’ve happened anyway, like the less eye-catching uniforms and fairer spawns. Nerfing the T4 helmet into a goldfish bowl is the other big one: heavy armour should cost you something. Whether Blue keeps its new friends once the bonuses end after Season 2 is the actual experiment.
Zoom out, though, and the real story is how much Bulkhead is shipping. This is the studio that opened early access with a video listing ten reasons not to buy Wardogs. It told us content drops would be thin, early access was for balancing and fixes, and player numbers would fall off a cliff. A month later we’re getting four guns, four vehicles (including a tank and a mobile anti-aircraft gun), weather, a betting vendor and a step made of wood. Whether they can keep that pace all the way to 1.0 is anyone’s guess. But setting the bar on the floor and then clearing it by a mile is a hell of a strategy. We’re here for it.
Until then, the GetRekt crew is staying put on Blue. Not for the money, obviously. Mostly for the money. Come and be a paid teammate: squads are forming on the Discord for the Season 2 drop on 15 October.
LOBBY // CONTROL ZONE // SEASON 2
VALKYRA 21/33
MANTICORE 19/33
LONESTAR 33/33 (+ cash bonus)
> Match starting.
> Lonestar win probability: improving. Allegedly.
Sources: Bulkhead (official Season 02 preview, 9 October), PC Gamer (“10 reasons not to buy” video), Road to Season 2 devlog, PC Gamer, GamesRadar+ (win rates), KeenGamer, MMOexp (helmet).
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