WARDOGS sets Early Access for 10 September; pre-orders live at $24.99
Bulkhead named a date, a price and a second playtest in one post: Early Access 10 September 2026 at $24.99, pre-orders open now, Closed Beta 21–23 August.
The “Major Announcement” teased for today has landed, and it answers the two questions this site has been unable to answer for six months.
WARDOGS launches into Steam Early Access on 10 September 2026, priced at $24.99. A Supporter Edition is $29.99. Pre-orders are live now. Before that, a Closed Beta runs 21–23 August.
All of it is confirmed on the Steam store page, not just posted to X — which matters, because the alpha announcements were X-only and left us labelling times as Reported for a week.
The beta has two doors, and they are not the same
This is the part worth getting right, because it is where coverage is already going wrong.
| Route | Cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-order WARDOGS or the Supporter Edition | $24.99 / $29.99 | Guaranteed access |
| Request Access on the Steam page | Free | A chance at access |
Bulkhead’s wording, verbatim, typo and all:
“Pre-order WARDOGS to get guaranteed access to the CLOSED BETA playtest running August 21th – 23rd. If you don’t enjoy the beta, please feel free to refund. Alternatively, request access above for a chance to get beta access.”
Guides still telling you to fill in a FirstLook hardware survey are describing the Closed Alpha, which used a different system and is over. Full breakdown of both routes →
The monetisation pledges got harder
February’s line was “No Battlepass. No Pay to Win. No Nikki Minaj Skins.” Today’s post goes considerably further, and in language that is difficult to walk back:
“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 directly purchase camos, camos should show that a player has worked hard to unlock that item not how much money they have.”
The middle one is the significant one. WARDOGS runs on a cash balance that persists between matches, seeded at $10,000, where losses are permanent — so a game that sold cash would be selling the result. Bulkhead has now said, in capitals, that it will not. Note the scope, though: the first pledge covers Early Access, and the devlog says plainly that some form of monetisation is planned years after 1.0. The cash and camo pledges carry no time limit; the blanket one does.
Bulkhead published 10 reasons not to buy it — and the numbers are in there
Alongside the store update, the studio posted a 15-minute devlog running through “10 Reasons why you should NOT Buy WARDOGS.” A developer arguing against its own pre-order on announcement day is not a thing that happens often, and it is of a piece with the refund line above.
It is also where the substance is. Four things in it had never been published anywhere:
- Launch content: 37 weapons, 21 vehicles and three maps, each with three variations — the first content figures Bulkhead has ever given, delivered alongside the admission that “War Dogs has a content problem” and a warning not to expect regular content drops during Early Access.
- A pricing ladder. $49.99 during year one as content lands, $59.99 at 1.0.
- A 1.0 target: roughly 24 months after launch, so around September 2028.
- Controller support, finally answered: partial gamepad support at Early Access launch, with aim assist that “will exist, but only to a small degree.”
There is one number we could not reconcile. The devlog states the current pre-order price as $39.99; the live Steam page charges $24.99, applies no discount and does not mention $39.99 anywhere. We checked the store directly. Pay the store price.
Full breakdown of all ten reasons →
Buried in the Supporter Edition: the first official weapon names
The $29.99 edition is cosmetics only — three “starter weapon” camos, a helicopter camo, a scoreboard icon and two bobbleheads. But the camos are named after the guns they go on, and that makes this list the first time Bulkhead has publicly named individual WARDOGS weapons:
- Valkyra-branded A-91 rifle camo
- Lonestar-branded Bushmaster camo
- Manticore-branded KH-2002 camo
- Littlebird helicopter “Taxi” camo
Until today, our weapons page could honestly say that not one weapon had been officially named — only categories. Four now have been, and a helicopter with them. It is worth noting that GameWatcher’s March list of real-world “lookalikes” included a KH-2002; that framing looks better today than it did at the time.
Our weapons page now also carries the 25 weapons we recorded in the Closed Alpha vendor, across seven tabs rather than the six categories Bulkhead had described publicly. Every one is labelled as alpha-observed, and none carries a price — every vendor card in that build displayed $0 against a $0 balance, which is a display we cannot explain rather than a price.
What is still unknown
- Every price inside the game. 37 weapons and 21 vehicles are confirmed; not one of their costs is. For a game built on spending decisions, that is still the largest hole.
- The other 12 weapons. Bulkhead confirms 37 at launch; we recorded 25 in the alpha build, and vendor stock may be faction-gated — only one faction was played, so that roster is not “every weapon in WARDOGS”.
- Vehicle names, beyond the Littlebird the camo list gave away.
- No Kolchia map data — no POIs, no biomes, no layout. We now know there are three maps with three variations each, and nothing about any of them.
- Steam Deck, Linux and Proton. The kernel-level anti-cheat question is unchanged and still unaddressed, and it is the one that decides Deck viability.
- Crossplay, still never mentioned.
When does WARDOGS come out? → · How much does it cost? → · How to get into the Closed Beta → · Should you pre-order? →