Bulkhead had promised The FPS Games Show would carry "a HUGE announcement that no one will see coming". On 3 September it turned out to be a competition. From the pinned post on @WARDOGS:
"Announcing the WARDOGS $100K Clip Contest. $100K REAL CASH! Life-changing for one player. Share your best WARDOGS clips using #WARDOGS100K or submit your clips at wardogs100k.com. Every clip in the top 100 wins $100K in-game cash. The number one clip wins it for real."
Nothing else about WARDOGS was announced at the show. Not a console version, not crossplay, not an open beta, not a price change. The standing unknowns this hub has tracked all year are exactly where they were on Tuesday.
How the contest works
The terms are on wardogs100k.com, Bulkhead's own site for it:
- A clip of two minutes or less, posted on X, YouTube, TikTok or Instagram with #WARDOGS100K and tagging @WARDOGS, then submitted through the form on the site with contact details. Multiple entries are allowed.
- You have to own WARDOGS on Steam to enter, and country restrictions apply — read the terms before counting on it.
- Deadline: 23:59 BST on 8 October 2026. Winners announced on 15 October or shortly after.
- Bulkhead picks the top 100. Each of them gets $100,000 of in-game cash. The clip it ranks first gets $100,000 in real money.
The selection line worth reading twice: the site says the more views and interaction a clip gets, the more likely Bulkhead is to see it. That is a visibility contest first and a clip contest second, which is the part of the design the community objected to.
The apology
Reaction on r/WarDogs and the Steam forums was that a marketing contest is not a "massive announcement", and that the four days of build-up had set expectations the reveal could not meet. Bulkhead answered on 4 September with a three-minute video, "Addressing the Announcement", whose description does not hedge:
"The aim was never to lead players on or overhype, but we failed at this. So for that, we're sorry."
It also says where the money comes from:
"We're using a portion of the WARDOGS marketing budget (not the game budget or your pre-orders) for this contest. It was intended to be a bit of fun for players, not the largest streamers with the most views."
The r/WarDogs moderators pinned the video within the hour, and the thread under it runs heavily towards accepting the apology and telling the studio it never needed to make one. A common reading there is that the real surprise had been Closed Beta 02 itself, announced two days early on 1 September because too many people had guessed it, which left the show with the contest.
A new map, shown but not dated
The same video carries the first look at a new map, Zestafona — the r/WarDogs moderators put the name in the title of their repost, and the footage shows factories and a denser industrial sprawl than Bakurani. Bulkhead has not said whether it is one of the two remaining Early Access maps or the fourth map it has planned for later in Early Access, and has given no date for it. The maps page will carry it the moment either is confirmed.
What this changes on the site
Nothing on the consoles page, except its stamp: it was re-checked on 4 September and the answer is still "planned, no date". The beta page is unaffected — Closed Beta 02 runs to 08:00 UTC on Sunday 6 September regardless — and Early Access is still 10 September. The clip contest itself runs past launch, so anyone with a clean two minutes from the beta weekend already has an entry.
Is WARDOGS coming to console? → · Closed Beta 02, and how to get in → · Live player count →