Level 20 costs 250,000 XP. In the Closed Beta it cost 111,500. Bulkhead says the median player gets there at 20 to 25 hours, and that one sentence is the whole shape of Season 1: slower through the teens, cheaper for a stretch after 20, then a grind at the top for what it calls the big-ticket items.
This guide is the table, and what to do with it. The figures are Bulkhead's own, from the Season 1 changelog it published the night before launch — the first time the studio has put an XP number in writing. The arithmetic between the rows and the hours estimate are ours, and they are labelled where they start. For what each level actually opens, the progression page has every gate; for the fastest route through each track, start with how to level up in WARDOGS.
How much XP each level takes
Below level 6 nothing changed. From 6 up, every band is slower, and the percentages are Bulkhead's.
| Level | Closed Beta | Season 1 | Slower by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 8,750 | 9,250 | 5.7% |
| 10 | 25,000 | 35,000 | 40.0% |
| 15 | 54,750 | 110,000 | 100.9% |
| 20 | 111,500 | 250,000 | 124.2% |
| 25 | 192,000 | 325,000 | 69.3% |
| 30 | 293,750 | 400,000 | 36.2% |
| 35 | 416,500 | 500,000 | 20.0% |
| 40 | 551,250 | 650,000 | 17.9% |
| 45 | 689,500 | 800,000 | 16.0% |
| 50 | 838,000 | 1,000,000 | 19.3% |
The beta figures were built for a weekend. Bulkhead says so directly: the old balancing "was designed specifically for weekend long beta tests." A ladder that got testers to the high thirties in three days was never going to survive a game people play for months, and the changelog's own framing is that the launch curve is where the studio "believes they should be."
Read the right-hand column as a cumulative total, not a per-level cost. Level 50 is a million XP from the start of the track, not a million for the last level.
Where the wall is: 15 to 20
Subtract each row from the next and the curve has a shape the percentages hide. From here down it is our arithmetic.
| Band | XP in the band | Per level |
|---|---|---|
| 6 to 10 | 25,750 | 6,400 |
| 10 to 15 | 75,000 | 15,000 |
| 15 to 20 | 140,000 | 28,000 |
| 20 to 25 | 75,000 | 15,000 |
| 25 to 30 | 75,000 | 15,000 |
| 30 to 35 | 100,000 | 20,000 |
| 35 to 40 | 150,000 | 30,000 |
| 40 to 45 | 150,000 | 30,000 |
| 45 to 50 | 200,000 | 40,000 |
The teens are the wall. Levels 15 to 20 cost 140,000 XP — 28,000 a level, nearly double the rate of the band before, and more than any band before 35. It is also the only place on the track where the per-level cost falls on the far side: 20 to 30 is 15,000 a level, the cheapest ten levels in the game after the opening six. Bulkhead's phrase for this was "slow levels down around 10 to 20, and flatten the curve from 35 onward," and the table bears it out, with one wrinkle — the flattening from 35 is a flattening of the increase, not of the cost. The last five levels are 40,000 each.
So the plan writes itself. Push a track to 15 while it is cheap. Expect 15 to 20 to feel like it takes as long as everything before it, because it nearly does: 140,000 XP against the 110,000 it took to reach 15. Then enjoy 20 to 30, which is the reward for getting there. Nobody is getting to 50 quickly, and the curve is built so that nobody does.
How long level 20 takes
Bulkhead gave one time figure and one only: the median player, at 20 to 25 hours, will be around level 20. Everything in this section is our model built on that single sentence, and it assumes XP arrives at a flat rate, which it does not — a first match pays worse than a twentieth.
Taken at face value, 250,000 XP in 22.5 hours is about 11,000 XP an hour for a typical player on their main track. At that rate the table becomes a calendar:
| Level | XP | At ~11,000 an hour |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 35,000 | ~3 hours |
| 15 | 110,000 | ~10 hours |
| 20 | 250,000 | ~22 hours |
| 30 | 400,000 | ~36 hours |
| 35 | 500,000 | ~45 hours |
| 50 | 1,000,000 | ~90 hours |
For comparison, the beta curve at the same rate would have reached 20 in about ten hours — a long Saturday, which is what it was for. Season 1 wants a fortnight of evenings for the same level, and the studio says so without apology: "those wanting the big ticket items, the top 5%, will need to grind."
The rate itself is the number to watch. If your first matches pay 6,000 an hour, level 15 is a work-week of evenings, not a weekend; if a building match on Support pays 20,000, the wall is an afternoon. The Support guide has the match that reached within nine points of level 7 without firing a shot, and that route is untouched by this patch.
The biggest lever on that rate is staying to the end. Bulkhead's Mark Tadros said on the Push to Talk podcast on 2 October that the end-of-match bonus is 40% of the XP for your role, and that first place pays triple what third does. Leave a match early and you give up the largest single XP payment in it. What else Bulkhead said about progression →
What the grind buys on each track
A level is only worth what opens at it. These are the gates that matter at 10, 20 and 35 on each track, with the one-off unlock cost that sits on top of the item's price. Every figure is Season 1 and every row is on the progression page.
| Track | At 10 | At 20 | At 35 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assault | Galil, $35,000 | M4, $100,000 | FAL, $200,000 |
| Medic | first aid kit at 9, $25,000 | AMP-9 50-round mag, $15,000 (MP5 at 15, $75,000) | Super-45, $150,000 |
| Support | M500, $50,000 (Large Hammer at 8, $75,000) | MAAWS, $125,000 | MGL-40, $200,000 |
| Recon | Mosin Nagant, $50,000 | SRVV brake, $17,500 (SV98 at 19, $100,000) | AMR 50, $200,000 |
| Driver | Kodiak [Pickup], $35,000 | Ural Defender at 18, $75,000 | L2A6, $500,000 |
| Pilot | Z20 Lakota, $35,000 | AH-6R [Rockets], $200,000 | Havoc, $500,000 |
Two things stand out. The wall at 15 to 20 sits exactly in front of the first serious weapon on three tracks — the M4, the MAAWS, the SV98 — which is not an accident. And the two vehicle tracks end at 35 on a half-million-dollar unlock each, the L2A6 and the Havoc, so a Driver or Pilot who reaches the top of the curve still needs a war chest. Level and cash are two gates, not one, and the Driver and Pilot routes pay both.
The XP that got cut
Two sources of XP are worth less than they were in the beta, and one is unchanged.
A kill from an air vehicle pays 250 XP rather than 300. It is still the best single event in the game for a pilot, but the days of a minigun run being worth more than a whole capture are trimmed.
Selling a supply-crate item worth under $75 pays 1 XP, down from 25, and the crate purchase curve has been rescaled "so low value items are priced sensibly and cannot be abused." That sentence describes a beta route — buy cheap, sell cheap, farm the sale — and closes it.
Building did not move. Every swing at a Forward Operating Base still pays Support XP and cash, with a larger sum on completion. The base itself now costs $7,500 rather than $2,500, so the first match is dearer, but the XP per swing is the same and it remains the quietest fast route in the game.
Why the ladder resets each season
The line in the changelog that matters past launch week is this one: "Each season we will have a different XP curve with different item orders."
Read it plainly. The table above is the Season 1 table. The gate a weapon sits behind is a Season 1 gate. When Season 2 arrives the curve can change and so can what unlocks where — and the changelog already did both once, moving seventeen items in the same post that published these figures.
What Bulkhead has not said is what a season does to your progress. Whether track levels reset, whether unlock cash is refunded, whether items you have opened stay open: none of it is in the post, and nobody outside the studio knows. The only precedent is the beta, where progress did not carry into Early Access — and a beta wipe is a different thing from a season roll. Until it says otherwise, plan a track to the level you want this season, and treat anything past that as a bet.
Push to 15 while it is cheap. Budget the teens. Then let 20 to 30 pay you back.
