Bulkhead's 10 reasons not to buy WARDOGS, and what each one actually reveals

On the day it opened pre-orders, Bulkhead published a fifteen-minute video titled "10 Reasons why you should NOT Buy WARDOGS." Its own framing: "something most AAA marketing teams would tell their dev teams to never do."

It is worth watching, but it is also fifteen minutes long and the most important facts in it are not the reasons themselves — they are the details buried inside them. This devlog contains the first content numbers Bulkhead has ever published, a full pricing ladder, a 1.0 target date, and the controller answer the community has been asking for since February.

Here is each reason, and what it actually tells you.

1. The content problem, and the first real numbers

Bulkhead leads with its weakest point, stated flatly: "What I'm saying is War Dogs has a content problem." The explanation is a business one — money went into core gameplay and performance "leaving less for content and the shiny things that actually sell games."

Then it gives numbers, which is the headline:

At Early Access launch
Weapons	37
Vehicles	21
Maps	3, each with 3 variations

Until this video, not a single one of those figures existed publicly. Our own weapons page could only list confirmed categories.

The warning attached matters as much as the numbers: do not expect regular content drops. One new map is planned across Early Access. Everything else goes to bug fixes, balance and the metagame. In Bulkhead's words: "You shouldn't expect monthly map updates or new vehicles being added. That's the plan for after 1.0."

2. The price is a ladder, not a discount

The reasoning is unusually explicit. Full price is $59.99. The metagame is missing, so cut it to $49.99. Year-one content is thin, so cut it again — and the price steps back up as each is delivered.

Stage	Price
Early Access now	$24.99 on Steam
During year one, as content lands	$49.99
At 1.0	$59.99

"If the price feels too high for an early access game, please don't buy it yet. Wait until the game has more of what you want and consider it then."

⚠️ The one number we cannot reconcile. The devlog states the current pre-order price as $39.99, giving the ladder as $39.99 → $49.99 → $59.99. The live Steam store charges $24.99, shows no discount, and contains no mention of $39.99. We verified the store page directly. Either the price was cut after recording or the video misstates it — but $24.99 is what you pay today.

3. The playercount will fall, and that is the plan

Bulkhead pre-empts its own launch narrative: player numbers will spike, then drop, and "journalists and influencers on the fringe of the community will try and rage-bait your enjoyment out of the game for social media clicks."

The target it names is strikingly modest — 3,000 to 5,000 daily concurrent players — described as a "sustainable, close-knit community" rather than a mass-market hit. Set against 800,000 wishlists (up from the 500,000 confirmed in May), that is a studio deliberately lowering expectations it could easily have inflated.

4. Monetisation, with the fine print read aloud

Three commitments, in Bulkhead's own numbering:

"We will not monetize the game at any point during early access."

"We will never monetize in-game cash or gold bars. They must be earned through play."

"We will never allow you to purchase camos. Camos should show a player's status, not how much money they have."

The second is the one that matters most, because the cash economy is the game — a persistent balance where losses are permanent. Selling cash would be selling results.

But the studio then does something almost nobody does: it tells you monetisation is coming. Years after 1.0, to cover servers, telemetry, anti-cheat updates and vault storage once base-game sales stop covering them. "We recommend you don't buy Wardogs if you're staunchly against any form of monetization, as you'll become disappointed in a few years post-release."

Note the asymmetry: pledge one is scoped to Early Access. Pledges two and three carry no time limit. Coverage flattening this into "WARDOGS will never have microtransactions" is misreading it. Bulkhead also confirms it solely owns the WARDOGS IP, which is what makes those promises its own to keep.

5. It is not a graphics showcase, and not a 240fps shooter

Two expectations killed at once: "If you're buying Wardogs for the next breakthrough in video game graphics, you're in the wrong place" and, on the other side, "if you're expecting to play native 4K at 240 FPS, Wardogs is not the game for you."

If you are unsure about your hardware, our system requirements page is verified against Steam — several competing spec pages still carry stale storage figures.

6. No roadmap, but a deadline

Bulkhead explicitly refuses a linear roadmap: features get tested live with the community "at seemingly random times, as the priorities of our development timeline shift."

It pairs that with the firmest date in the whole video. Acknowledging Early Access's reputation for games that never ship, it commits: "Wardogs has a plan and will reach full release roughly 24 months after launching into Early Access in September." That points at around September 2028 — tighter than the Steam page's "1 to 2 years."

7. Battalion 1944, addressed directly

"Yes, we are the developers of Battalion 1944. That's not hidden information."

The account is unusually unvarnished: 50–200 daily players, publisher relationships that broke down, a console version "held in Limbo by lawyers", profits burned supporting the game, and communication that "went dark… way darker than we should have gone."

The detail worth knowing, and the reason this reason lands: once work-for-hire projects stabilised the studio, Bulkhead refunded every Kickstarter backer who funded Battalion. Its own conclusion: "if you still don't trust our studio because of Battalion 1944, don't rush to buy War Dogs."

8. Proximity voice chat, and what gets said in it

WARDOGS has local VoIP audible to all three teams, and Bulkhead's position is that people — including its developers — will talk trash in it. You can mute individual players, mute VoIP entirely, or disable text chat. Community server admins, Bulkhead's own servers and the developers all draw the line on harassment.

9. Gamepad support — the six-month question, answered

This is the reason with the most practical value, because it closes a gap nothing else could.

• Partial gamepad support at Early Access launch. Confirmed.
• Aim assist will exist — "but only to a small degree as playing without it is honestly just comically bad."
• Keyboard and mouse remain optimal. "War Dogs is designed as a PC-focused game for PC players first."

Our controller support guide has tracked this since before the alpha, when the honest answer was that pads worked but aim assist was entirely unaddressed. It now has an official answer, and "partial" is still carrying weight — rebinding was unreliable during the Closed Alpha and the devlog does not mention it.

10. You will die, and travelling back is the punishment

The last reason is a design argument. Play WARDOGS like Call of Duty and you will lose to someone more patient. The common complaint — how long it takes to get back to the Control Zone after dying — is, Bulkhead says, "your punishment for dying", and deliberately so.

There is no arbitrary respawn timer. Your respawn time is however long it takes you to get back: buy a vehicle, catch a lift, pick a route, decide whether to trust that pilot. That is what gives pilot and driver roles value. "It's your cash, your decisions, your consequences."

What it adds up to

The stated purpose is confidence: "We're not saying our game is perfect. We're saying here's our plan, here's our vision."

Read cynically, a video listing ten reasons not to buy is still a marketing video, and it ran on the day pre-orders opened. Read at face value, it is the most specific thing Bulkhead has published — content counts, a price ladder, a 1.0 target, a monetisation horizon and a direct answer on controllers, none of which existed publicly twenty-four hours ago.

Both readings can be true. What is not in dispute is that the facts inside it are checkable, and we have checked the ones that can be: the store price, the release date and the beta dates are confirmed against Steam. The $39.99 figure is the only thing in the video that does not match Bulkhead's own store page.

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Last verified 11 August 2026 against the WARDOGS Steam store page and the devlog transcript. Should you pre-order? → · How to get into the Closed Beta → · How much does WARDOGS cost? →