Pre-Alpha playtests announced
Four months after saying playtests were not close, Bulkhead opens pre-alpha testing — the first outside hands on the game.
Bulkhead announced pre-alpha playtesting, one day after dropping a new gameplay trailer.
This is the moment the schedule visibly accelerated. In February the studio’s own FAQ said “we have a long road to Steam Early Access, so playtests aren’t in the immediate future”. By early June outside players were being invited in, and by August there was a three-day Closed Alpha with invites going out in the tens of thousands.
Access ran through the same route that still applies: a FirstLook account at community.wardogs.com, the official Discord, Steam and Discord linked to FirstLook, and a completed hardware survey.
The pre-alpha matters for reading everything that followed. Footage, impressions and balance complaints from June and July are describing a pre-alpha build, not the Early Access game and not even the Closed Alpha build. Anyone citing a weapon’s behaviour or a vehicle’s cost from that period is quoting a number that has probably already changed.