Does WARDOGS wipe progress?

Yes, at the end of every season, and Season 2 starts on 15 October 2026. When a season ends, WARDOGS resets your cash and your level progression, converts whatever cash is left into Gold Bars, and keeps the Gold Bars and every cosmetic bought with them. Bulkhead has confirmed the Season 2 date but not yet the day of the reset. Joe Brammer, Bulkhead's CEO, put the first season at a month on 27 August: "season 1 is a month, but then season 2, 3, 4 could be whatever we decide."

The reset rule is printed in the game, on the Gold Exchange panel:

At the end of a major update cycle your level progression and cash will be reset. The date of any major update and progression reset will be announced ahead of time. Any remaining cash at the end of a cycle will be automatically exchanged for gold bars.

What resets and what survives

On your account	At the end of a season	Basis
Cash	Reset — exchanged for Gold Bars, not deleted	Confirmed
Level and XP progression	Reset	Confirmed
Gold Bars	Kept	Confirmed
Gold Market cosmetics	Kept — "additive and persist across seasons"	Confirmed
The season's exclusive item	Kept by whoever unlocked it; offered for that season only	Confirmed
Vault items, including Twitch drops	Not stated	Unconfirmed
Skills (not in the game yet)	Kept — Brammer: "your skills have stayed"	Confirmed (planned)

The cosmetic rows come from Howard Philpott, Bulkhead's co-founder, on 29 August: each season offers one item as an optional goal, "a real 'I was there' unlock", and the rest of the Gold Market carries over. Nobody at Bulkhead has said what happens to unused vault stock, so spend it this season rather than bank on it.

The conversion is the part worth planning around. Cash is exchanged at whatever the gold rate is on the day, and the rate moves daily. How the exchange works, and why timing it matters →

When is the next wipe?

Season 2 starts on 15 October 2026. That date is confirmed: Bulkhead posted a "WARDOGS | Season 02 Teaser" on the Steam news hub reading "WARDOGS Season 02 is coming. 15th October 2026", and mirrored it on X. The teaser gives the date and nothing else, so the day your cash and levels actually reset is not announced yet. Bulkhead has promised to announce it ahead of time.

The estimates pointed slightly earlier. Early Access opened on 10 September, so Brammer's "a month" put the end of Season 1 around 10 October, and the in-game "Season Ends In" countdown, as players quoted it on 13 September, landed on the same day. On 18 September he told a fan Season 2 was "about a month after launch, so 3 weeks away-ish", which pointed at 9–10 October too. The confirmed date came five to six days later. Whether the reset lands at the end of the countdown or with Season 2 on the 15th is the part still to be announced; either way, convert cash you don't need before 10 October rather than after. Brammer, 27 August → · Brammer, 18 September → · The full Season 2 breakdown →

What changes between seasons

More than the wipe. Brammer on 12 September: each season changes the order of progression, adds new weapons and vehicles, and rotates existing ones out. The Season 1 changelog says the same of the XP curve — "each season we will have a different XP curve with different item orders" — so the gate a weapon sits behind today is a Season 1 gate. The Season 1 curve, level by level →

He added that more of the game will be saved to your account as Bulkhead builds out the meta, which is the direction of travel rather than a list of what is spared.

The first named example came on 29 September. In a video posted on X, Brammer described Skills: you earn points in a skill by doing the thing (reviving teammates builds a medic skill), RuneScape-style, and skills stay when a season wipes you. They are not in the game yet and have no date. He also said seasons will stay short for Season 2 and get longer from Season 3, and that the wipe itself is staying: "the journey is WARDOGS", not maxing out everything each season. Skills, Intel and the Gunsmith explained →

Bulkhead's developers went further on the Push to Talk podcast, published 2 October. Wipes stay for Early Access because they give the team "the freedom to kind of like position stuff where it needs to be". Seasons have no fixed length: "It can be a month, it can be six weeks. It can be three months," Brammer said. The developers also said everything in the gold bar store stays "season on season" except the Black and Gold AK, which matches the season-exclusive row above. After 1.0, a reset "will look very different", with players able to take "certain things" into the next season. That last part is a direction, not a list. Everything else from the podcast →

One reset has nothing to do with seasons. Players caught abusing cash exploits have their cash and XP set to zero on the spot, alongside a timed ban. What gets you banned →

Did beta progress carry into Early Access?

No, by every account, though the original statement is not in front of us. Sportskeeda reports that Joe Brammer confirmed on X that beta progress would not carry over, because the beta's progression was condensed into a single weekend rather than matching how it works at launch. Both Closed Betas ran on the separate WARDOGS Playtest application, and Early Access accounts started from zero on 10 September. We carry this as Reported until the post itself can be linked.

Why Bulkhead does it

The studio has given two reasons, both from the April roadmap: a reset lets newer players start closer to level with veterans in a game where the persistent cash balance is the progression, and it keeps Bulkhead free to overhaul progression during Early Access without leaving anyone's account stuck on an old system. The Gold Bar conversion is the trade-off that makes the first reason bearable: the cash you earned buys something permanent before it goes.

The Black Market, the Vault, and the season reset in full → · Every unlock and what it costs →