WARDOGS is getting three new progression systems: Skills that survive the season wipe, a third resource called Intel, and a Gunsmith where Intel buys weapon parts rather than whole guns. Bulkhead's CEO Joe Brammer laid all three out on 29 September, in a 46-minute video on X reacting to a JbowenDaMan video about balance and XP. None has a release date, and none is tied to Season 2 yet.
| System | What it is | Survives the wipe? | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skills | Levelled by doing the action, RuneScape-style | Yes | Confirmed, no date |
| Intel | A third resource next to cash and XP | Not stated | Confirmed, no date |
| Gunsmith | Spend Intel on weapon parts, not whole guns | Not stated | Confirmed, no date |
Why Bulkhead is adding them: there isn't enough to unlock
Brammer did not dress the problem up. "The late game isn't broken, it's shit," he said, and then explained what he meant: it is the least-tested part of any game, and in WARDOGS it is where power weapons and level 4 armour turn everyone else into, in his words, a bot in someone else's game. Bulkhead's target is for 80% of your matches to be good. He puts the start of a season at about that and the end of one at about 60%.
When the studio says WARDOGS has a "content problem", this is the meaning: you don't have enough stuff to unlock. Past a point you grind through nothing to reach the one item you want, where you should be getting better piece by piece. The fix, as Brammer put it, isn't rebalancing a few items or capping helicopters. It is making progression longer.
That is what the three systems are for. They are not new ideas. Player Skills was on the April roadmap, alongside the Black Market and the Vault. What is new is how they work, and that they are the studio's stated fix for the late game.
What Skills are, and why they survive the wipe
A skill levels up from doing the thing it covers. Revive a lot of people and you earn medic skill points, and over time you become a better medic than someone who has just started. Brammer compared it to RuneScape's skills, and the comparison holds: no class to pick, no tree to buy into, just practice.
The important part is what happens at the end of a season. Cash and levels reset, as they do now. Your skills don't. In Brammer's words, when the season wipes you, "your skills have stayed". It is the first thing Bulkhead has named that carries across seasons apart from Gold Bars and cosmetics. What the wipe keeps and resets →
The catch: some abilities get worse first
To leave room for skills to improve you, Bulkhead is going to weaken some things you have now. Brammer gave two examples:
- Tactical sprint gets shorter, and becomes something you can lengthen through a skill.
- Staying in the scope after a sniper shot, so you can see what you hit, becomes a skill you unlock rather than the default.
He was open about the trade: "the initial experience will be worse and then it'll get better", and it will reward players who are genuinely good at the role. If your sprint feels short after the update that brings skills, this is why. Don't file it as a bug.
What Intel is
A third resource. WARDOGS has cash, which you spend in matches, and XP, which levels you up. Brammer said the design needs a third, and that it will be called Intel. Its first named job is paying for Gunsmith unlocks.
What Bulkhead has not said is how you earn it. There is no rate, no source and no cap. One old community claim fits the shape: beta players reported that the Challenge System would pay out in a separate, unnamed resource. Nobody at Bulkhead has connected that to Intel, so treat it as a guess.
How the Gunsmith will work
Today you unlock whole weapons. Bulkhead wants you to use Intel at a Gunsmith in the game's menus instead, unlocking components for a gun: the stock, the trigger, what Brammer called its furniture. These are separate from the attachments you already buy, the scopes, grips and muzzles.
The weapons were built for this. Each one is a platform, so components can turn one gun into a variant of it. Brammer's example was taking an AK and making it an AK-74, though he added that he is "not the weapons guy", so take the example as an illustration rather than a promise of that exact variant. He also said the Gunsmith already exists in some form, and that he would not show it on camera for fear of leaking something.
It changes what an unlock is. Instead of saving for the next rifle, you would build the rifle you have into several. That is more to unlock without adding more guns, which is exactly the problem Brammer described. How weapon unlocks work today →
The wipe is staying
Anyone hoping these systems replace the season reset should read this bit twice. Brammer was blunt: "the journey is WARDOGS". Maxing out every unlock every season is not the goal, and a fresh start is part of the design. Skills soften the reset without removing it. He also said Season 2 will be short, like Season 1, and that seasons will get longer from Season 3. Season 2 and the season plan →
What we still don't know
- When. No date for any of the three, and no season named. Brammer said quick fixes come first because these systems take time to build.
- How you earn Intel. No source or rate has been published.
- Which skills exist. Medic is the only example given, plus the two abilities that become skills.
- What the Gunsmith costs, and whether Intel survives the wipe like skills do.
- Whether Season 2 includes any of it. The Update 0.1.2 notes call Season 2 a larger update with new map conditions, equipment, balance reworks and additional features, with details due the week of 5 October. That is where to look first.
Until Bulkhead posts patch notes for them, every detail beyond the ones above is a guess.
