A new urban map called Sabatulo, three-month seasons, multi-track unlocks, limited-gear servers and a 185,000-account ban wave. Bulkhead also owns up to everything that went wrong in Season 2.
Wardogs Season 3 drops on Thursday 12 November. No start time yet.
The new map, Sabatulo, is urban and close quarters, built around a hospital and apartment blocks.
Seasons go to about three months, unlocks get reworked by role, and limited servers stick to early-to-mid gear.
A fresh economy reset, a ban wave and a crackdown on real-money traders and XP farm servers.
Bulkhead admits Season 2 was overcooked: the Blue bribe, rushed progression, exploits and too much content too fast.
Season 3 of Wardogs drops on Thursday 12 November, and Bulkhead has finally put out the devlog it pulled last week. The short version: a brand new urban map called Sabatulo, longer seasons, a reworked unlock system, limited-gear servers, a fresh economy reset and a big ban wave. The long version comes with something you don’t hear from game studios often: a fairly frank list of everything it got wrong in Season 2.
“No social experiments. No reactivity,” is how Bulkhead sums up Season 3. If you’ve been anywhere near the GetRekt Discord over the last month, you’ll know exactly which experiments it means.
Here’s the full 14-minute devlog, which dropped on the official WARDOGS channels at about 8am NZT this morning (Saturday 7 November):
Sabatulo is the headline act. Bulkhead says it “brings urban warfare and close quarters combat to WARDOGS”, which is a big change of pace from the open fields and long sightlines the game has been about so far. Going by the key art, it’s a war-torn town built around a hospital, the Sabatulo Clinic, with apartment blocks, a chunky industrial tower and plenty of rooftops for snipers and helicopter drops.
Expect tighter fights, more room clearing and a lot less of getting dropped from 400 metres by someone you never saw. Whether vehicles and armour feel as good in narrow streets as they do in open country is the big unknown until Thursday.
Season 2 went live on 15 October and lasted about three weeks before Bulkhead admitted it needed a do-over. The devlog’s chapter on it is literally called “Season 02 Overcooked?”. Spoiler: yes. Here’s the rap sheet.
To be fair to Bulkhead, it’s owned all of it, which is more than most studios manage. It also has the cash to fix things. Wardogs topped Newzoo’s September PC revenue chart ahead of Fortnite and FC 27. But it’s been a messy few weeks, and that’s before you get to Brammer telling Edge that devs on US$100K who won’t do overtime are talking “Californian bulls***”. He also told Edge the studio is taking December off, and suggested players go play GTA 6 while they’re away.
If you want to skip straight to the good bits, here’s where everything is in the video:
This is the Season 3 pitch Wardogs needed. Sabatulo looks like the most interesting thing Bulkhead has shipped since launch, longer seasons mean progress actually counts for something, and limited servers are a proper answer for anyone sick of getting farmed by tank crews on day three. A real ban wave is overdue, too. Anyone who’s played Wardogs on an Oceania evening has had a match ruined by someone who was clearly not that good.
But we’ve heard “we’ve learned our lesson” before, and Season 2 had a plan too. The real test is Thursday night and the first fortnight after it. If the economy reset holds, the unlocks don’t get sped up the minute player counts dip, and nobody gets paid to play Blue, then this is a genuine reset. If not, December off is going to feel very long.
The GetRekt crew will be on Sabatulo from day one. Red or Green, never Blue. Come squad up in the GetRekt Discord and catch up on all our Wardogs coverage.
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