Wardogs is about to get shaken up with the arrival of Season 2. The tactical shooter will get a fresh arsenal, new vehicles, a round of balance changes, and more ways to fortify the battlefield.
The update will be available at 9:30 AM UTC on October 15, with the community already discussing its potential impact. Some players have been enthusiastic about the scale of the changes, although the new economy and logistics adjustments have seen concerns from players who rely more heavily on those systems.
Here are the 10 changes that will have the biggest impact on Wardogs, followed by everything new in Wardogs Season 2.
Blue Team Bribery
Wardogs is trying something unusual to solve a problem money alone can't usually fix: bribing players to choose the team they don't want to play.
Lonestar--or the blue team--has struggled with lower win rates and earned itself quite the reputation as the cursed faction in the game. Bulkhead says that could be down to uniform visibility or spawn locations, but weird player superstitions are probably the real reason people avoid the team.
Season 2 introduces extra cash and XP for Lonestar victories, plus additional rewards for certain teamplay actions. Players on any faction that's at least 40 points behind the team in second place will also receive a 20% vendor discount to encourage them to equip their best loadouts and try to recoup the loss.
This is being treated as a Season 2 experiment rather than a permanent balance solution, but it remains to be seen whether the rewards are enough to change players' preference.
Four New Weapons
Season 2 adds four new weapons, giving players more options across multiple combat roles:
- TCX-SPR: An assault rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm.
- PP-19 Bizon: 9x19mm submachine gun.
- Evo-3 Ultra: A .308 Winchester light machine gun.
- M14: A .308 Winchester marksman rifle.
The new weapons arrive alongside additional optics, magazines, muzzles, and bipods. They also tie into the revised progression system, so players will have new equipment to work towards as they level up.
With weapon damage, recoil, and suppression also being reworked, the effectiveness of different weapon classes could shift considerably throughout Season 2.
Four New Vehicles
The roster of available vehicles is expanding too, with four new options designed for different jobs:
- Wolf-110: A fast, lightweight transport.
- Wolf-110 with M2 Browning: An armed version with heavy machine gun.
- T-72B3: A battle tank that's slower than the L2A6, but cheaper and more fuel efficient.
- Flakpanzer Gepard: A dedicated anti-aircraft vehicle.
The new vehicles give drivers more choices before unlocking the game's more expensive hardware. The T-72B3 offers a different cost-versus-performance trade-off, while the Gepard adds another specialist option for dealing with airborne threats.
Vehicle progression has been adjusted, with the Wolf-110, Wolf-110 with M2 Browning, T-72B3, and Gepard appearing in the Driver track at levels 8, 16, 20, and 25 respectively.
Rain Is Important
The new rain weather preset is one of the more interesting changes because it affects far more than just the scenery. Rain visibly wets characters, vehicles, and surfaces. Its sound changes depending on whether you're outside, indoors, in a vehicle, or under cover. If a building's roof is destroyed, rain can fall through the opening. GTA 6 who?
The tactical consequences are even more interesting. Rain reduces spotting range and weakens Molotov flames. During heavier weather, thunder is synchronized across the server, with everyone hearing the same strike from the same direction.
The thunder can mask footsteps, potentially giving players a brief opportunity to reposition or approach without being heard. A storm could become an active part of your tactical approach rather than just a dramatic overhaul.
New Meta
It might sound like we're stating the obvious here, but with Bulkhead making significant adjustments to damage across weapon classes, the meta will shift more dramatically than in the new season changes you're used to in other tactical shooters.
The aim of the overhaul is to give each category a clearer purpose. High-caliber ammunition was delivering too much damage in some assault rifles, DMRs, and light machine guns. Those weapons could get close to sniper-rifle levels of damage while firing much faster. The new base damage reductions are:
- .308 Winchester: Down 25%
- 7.62x54mmR: Down 20%
- 7.62x39mm: Down 19%
- .50 Cal: Down 16%
Assault rifles will also deal less damage to the body, while LMGs will match assault-rifle body damage and rely on sustained fire and larger magazines more. DMR damage has been adjusted too, while sniper rifles receive increased hit location damage to ensure they're still a viable choice.
Progression Is Much Faster
Grinding a role was a major commitment in Season 1. Bulkhead says most players stalled between levels 10 and 20 before reaching the most valuable equipment for each role. Season 2 cuts the XP required for those levels dramatically. Level 10 will require 29% less XP, level 15 will require 50% less, and level 20 will require 55% less XP. That means you'll only need 111,500 XP to reach level 20 instead of 250,000. The highest listed role track level, 50, is around 23% less expensive in terms of XP.
Unlocks have been shuffled across all of the role tracks. Some equipment arrives earlier, while other weapons or attachments move to different roles or become more expensive. The result is a less punishing grind for players who want to experiment with different roles, although not every unlock is getting easier. The full list of changes is detailed at the bottom of this article.
Building Is Getting More Expensive
If you're anything like me, as soon as a match starts turning against my team, I become a builder. There's something satisfying about hammering away at structures under the guise of "fortifying the base" when actually I'm just hiding from the bullies on the battlefield that keep wiping out our uncoordinated team. However, some of the structures were getting utterly ridiculous, and Bulkhead says it wants them to feel more like considered investments than items players can spam without much thought.
Some of the biggest cost increases in terms of supplies requires are:
- Doors: 22 to 80
- Gates: 85 to 200
- L81 Mortar: 150 to 600
- Stingray: 150 to 600
- Hot Zone Magnet: 2,250 to 2,750.
There are new items, too. The new MG Nest costs 650 supplies, while the large shelter costs 250. A wooden step is available for smaller setups. The Drill Rig, Talon, and Mortar are all being adjusted to make them more expensive to build and keep active, although some build speeds have been reduced. The Talon 9K-SAM and Vanguard CIWS are cheaper to build.
Teamkillers Will Be Punished, Maybe
Accidental friendly fire is one thing, and part of the chaos of Wardogs, but those that choose to deliberately set off on a teamkilling spree are a different (annoying) problem. Season 2 introduces a victim-driven system that lets players decide whether to forgive or punish a teammate who kills them.
Punishments accumulate against repeat offenders, potentially leading to kicks and increasingly long bans. Forgiving someone removes that potential mark against them. If a player respawns and leaves the safe zone without voting, the incident is automatically forgiven.
The system gives victims a say in how friendly fire incidents are handled, instead of treating every teamkill the same. It should help to distinguish between an honest mistake and repeated or deliberate griefing.
Team Switching Has Consequences
Switching factions late in a match can give players an unfair advantage, especially if one side is quite far ahead. Season 2 introduces restrictions once a team is leading by 10 or more points. Players can't switch teams again for 15 minutes after joining one, and anyone who switches or joins an ongoing match will have their maps obscured until they first reach the control zone.
They cannot use the spawn vehicle before reaching the control zone, either. The restrictions are designed to make it harder to jump to the winning team for an easy finish while still allowing players to join friends who are already in matches.
The Wager Vendor Lets You Bet On Yourself
A new Wager Vendor will introduce an optional risk and reward system, although it won't be available right at the start of Season 2.
You'll be able to stake your own cash on completing objectives, such as getting kills in the control zone or delivering players safely. You can choose objectives, decide how many deaths to risk, and combine challenges for larger payouts.
The feature is very experimental at this stage. Bulkhead says it may remove the vendor during the season if it proves easy to exploit. It offers another way to earn cash in the shooter, which I know I personally desperately need. Now I just need to get good at the game.
Full Wardogs Season 2 Patch Notes
The following is a breakdown of the remaining changes and the full range of adjustments listed in the patch notes. All prices are in in-game cash unless otherwise stated:
New content and features
- Weapons: Added the TCX-SPR assault rifle, PP-19 Bizon SMG, Evo-3 Ultra LMG, and M14 marksman rifle.
- Attachments: Added new sights, suppressors, muzzle brakes, flash hiders, magazines, and bipods for the new weapons.
- Molotov: Added a throwable incendiary that deals impact damage and burns players who remain in its flames. It can ignite destructible foliage, and rain reduces its fire damage.
- Vehicles: Added the Wolf-110, armed Wolf-110, T-72B3 tank, and Flakpanzer Gepard anti-aircraft vehicle.
- Buildables: Added the manned M2 Browning MG Nest, Large Shelter, and Wooden Step.
- Weather: Added rain with wet surfaces, location-dependent rain audio, water coming through destroyed roofs, synchronised thunder, reduced spotting range, and weaker Molotov flames.
- Gold Market: Added eight weapon and vehicle skins across four camouflage families. The Black & Gold Little Bird skin is exclusive to Season 2; Chocolate Chip, Two-Tone Desert, and Digital Wood skins cover additional weapons and vehicles. The Black & Gold AK camouflage has been removed.
- Wager Vendor: Planned for later in Season 2, not launch. Players will be able to stake cash on objectives and track their wagers in-game.
- Teamkill system: Added Forgive and Punish voting, with accumulated punishments leading to kicks and escalating bans.
- Squad coordination: Squad leaders can set a visible squad objective from a predefined list. Squad invitations and timed prompts now queue.
- Last loadout: Rebuying a previous loadout now displays its contents in the equipment vendor, where players can modify items before buying.
- Server seeding: Players who populate empty servers receive rewards and a vendor discount when the match begins. Pre-match areas include guns, targets, a football, and a hidden radio.
- Server ping: Official servers now enforce region-specific ping limits, with sustained high-ping kicks, protection against server-side lag spikes, temporary rejoin restrictions, and browser filters for maximum ping. Community server administrators can configure their own limits.
- Bakurani: All three factions have new spawn locations and routes to the control zone.
Combat, weapons and equipment
- Calibre damage: Reduced base damage for .308 Winchester by 25%, 7.62x54mmR by 20%, 7.62x39mm by 19%, and .50 calibre by 16%.
- DMRs: Adjusted headshot and upper-body damage to place these weapons between assault rifles and sniper rifles.
- Assault rifles: Made body-shot damage more consistent across the torso and slightly reduced body damage.
- LMGs: Standardised body damage with assault rifles, putting more emphasis on sustained fire and magazine capacity.
- Scout Rifle: Headshots now kill targets without helmets in one hit. Level 1 helmets require two headshots.
- Armour: Level 3 damage reduction falls from 55% to 50%; Level 4 falls from 65% to 60%.
- Level 4 helmet: Adds muffled audio and proximity chat, restricted vision, and fogging when sprinting.
- Helmet suppression resistance: Level 3 helmets reduce suppression by 68%, while Level 4 helmets reduce it by 80%.
- Shotgun slugs: Armour damage now scales with armour tier.
- Vehicle weapons: Calibre damage reductions also affect compatible vehicle weapons. Heavy and artillery turrets now use infantry-style hit-location damage instead of helicopter-cannon values.
- Suppression: Reworked suppression around shared weapon falloff curves. Near misses from small and medium calibres suppress more strongly, firing rate is accounted for, and screen shake is reduced.
- Compound Bow: Reduced arrow drop, improved effectiveness against lower-tier armour, and introduced armour-tier-based damage scaling.
- Parachutes: Take longer to open and won't deploy below approximately 10 metres. Opening below roughly 50 metres while falling quickly may not slow players in time to prevent fall damage.
- Medical Bag: Durability increased from 100 to 150.
- Infrared Rangefinder: Now uses batteries, with roughly 80 seconds of active use per battery. Rapid toggling drains batteries faster.
- MP5: Recoil is now more horizontal.
- Super-45: Damage falls off more sharply beyond 50 metres.
- DMRs: Received a recoil adjustment pass.
- MGL-40: Muzzle velocity reduced by 25%, with stronger damage falloff at the outer edge of its 40mm blast. It also suffers more sway and inaccuracy, slower aiming, and a reload penalty when used from the Little Bird bench.
- Mosin: Added the PU 91/30 3.5x scope and removed access to other optics pending future customisation features.
- Weapon inspections: Some silent inspection animations are a known issue.
Building and fortification changes
- Build costs: Increased the costs of many walls, doors, gates, shelters, and defensive structures. Doors rise from 22 to 80 supplies, gates from 85 to 200, and the L81 Mortar from 150 to 600.
- New construction requirements: Wooden Steps require a small hammer or better, Large Shelters a medium hammer or better, and MG Nests a large hammer.
- Build speed: Medium hammers contribute less per swing, and critical spots provide smaller bonuses. Large-hammer speed per swing is unchanged.
- Drill Rigs: Minimum activation fuel rises from 1,500 to 2,000. Maximum uptime falls from 375 to 300 seconds, maximum fuel rises from 7,500 to 10,000, and the cooldown after spawning a rig is substantially longer.
- Talon: Reload time increases from two to five seconds, and restocking from ammunition supplies costs four times as much.
- Mortar: Restocking costs double, and a new firing animation slows its rate of fire.
- Placement fixes: Barbed wire and sandbags can now sit on Bremmer walls. Foundations fit slopes, stairs, and walls better, while unfinished structures collapse when they lose their supports.
- Tank traps: Restricted to designated surfaces.
- Breaching: Hammers can no longer breach doors or gates. Halligan Bars can breach both.
- Barbed wire: No longer grants cash or XP for kills.
- CIWS: Structure damage is adjusted so light cover is destroyed more easily while heavy fortifications resist it better.
- Supply structures: Build costs and ammunition requirements are rebalanced to reduce the dominance of multi-Drill Rig setups.
Vehicles and controls
- Vehicle inventories: Purchased vehicles are private to their owner and squad by default. Fully unlocked vehicles can be opened to everyone through a setting. Free team-spawned vehicles remain public.
- Tracked vehicles: Heavier handling, less floating in the air, and less bouncing on landing.
- Humvee: Improved terrain handling and hill climbing, with a slower build-up to top speed.
- Dune Buggy: Less effective brakes allow more skidding and drifting.
- Vehicle explosives: Explosives and placeable items can no longer be used from enclosed vehicle seats.
- Vehicle fixes: Fixed incorrect Humvee gunner orientation, firing desynchronization and audio, tank launching, vehicles sinking during collisions, wheeled vehicles getting stuck after rolling backwards, controller aiming issues, turret controls, late-joining players missing smoke and flares, and exiting vehicles pushing players through them.
- Helicopter cockpit: Firing out through the glass now damages the helicopter, just as incoming fire does.
- Spawn Vehicle: Vanguard CIWS takes 2.25 times longer to destroy it.
- Aim assist: Added a controller strength slider, ranging from zero to the default setting of one. Aim assist now works on firing-range target dummies.
- Controller responsiveness: Adjusted horizontal and vertical sensitivity, changed aim acceleration, sped up the return to normal aiming after closing radial menus, and improved scrolling and selection times.
- Controller bindings: Updated shortcuts for minimap zoom, crate deployment, inventory, weight display, loadout removal, bribes, squad invitations, scoreboard sorting, dropping items, and tab navigation.
- Controller fixes: Fixed grenade cooking and bandage self-healing cancellation issues.
Progression and role unlocks
- Role XP: Reaching level 20 now requires 111,500 XP instead of 250,000. XP requirements also fall at levels 10, 15, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50.
- Unlock reshuffle: Many attachments have moved to earlier levels or different role tracks. Some items have become more expensive or require higher levels.
- Wardog track: Added the Compact P-1 Red Dot, Gold Market access, and the Lonestar-only Eiffel 65 music tape. Supply pallets now require progression unlocks rather than being available by default.
- Assault track: Added the Molotov and TCX-SPR with attachments. C4 and its remote detonator move into Assault, and several optics and grips move between tracks.
- Medic track: The PP-19 Bizon is unlocked by default. The Medical Bag moves from level 24 to 14 and drops in unlock price from $75,000 to $50,000. The MP5 also moves to level 4 and becomes cheaper.
- Recon track: Added the M14, its magazines and attachments, and a Mosin scope. The BMR-308 moves from level 30 to 20, while the Compound Bow and Claymore become more expensive.
- Support track: Added the Evo-3 Ultra and attachments. The PKM moves from level 30 to 15, while the M249 moves from level 15 to 20.
- Pilot track: The minigun-equipped Little Bird moves from level 4 to 8 and costs $125,000 to unlock instead of $50,000. The Havoc also becomes more expensive.
- Driver track: Added the new Wolf-110 variants, T-72B3, and Flakpanzer Gepard. The SPH-2 moves from WARDOG level 90 to Driver level 31 and becomes cheaper to unlock.
- Track-specific changes: Numerous weapons, scopes, magazines, suppressors, brakes, grips, and other equipment have revised unlock levels and prices across all seven tracks. These changes include both earlier access and delayed or more expensive unlocks.
Cash, XP and rewards
- Assault kills: Increased the bonus for kills with assault-archetype weapons from $1,500 to $2,000.
- FOB hacking: Teammates near the FOB now receive $1,000 and 250 XP. The hacker still receives $2,500 and 250 XP.
- Breaching: Halligan Bar door breaches grant $100 once per door. Halligan Bar uses increase from five to seven.
- FOB doors: Closing a friendly FOB door grants $75.
- FOB destruction: Rewards can include up to $7,500 and 250 XP, depending on the supplies held.
- Role XP assignments: Destroying buildables and using IEDs or C4 now award Assault XP. Artillery awards Driver XP. Repairs award Driver or Pilot XP depending on the vehicle.
- Logistics streaks: Consecutive deliveries grant increasing rewards, capped at 10 crate deliveries, 10 pallet deliveries, 25 player deliveries, and 10 return trips.
- Logistics base rewards: Reduced payments and XP for player deliveries, ground-vehicle returns, supply crates, and supply pallets. Delivery streaks compensate for repeated successful trips.
- Drill towers: Capturing an enemy drill tower now grants $1,500 and 300 XP, up from $750 and 250 XP.
- Vehicle destruction: Rewards now reflect each vehicle variant, with armed versions paying more. Rewards for destroying attack vehicles can also increase based on their kill counts.
- Buildable destruction: Cash rewards now correspond to construction supply costs, with XP roughly one-quarter of the cash reward.
- Supply crate destruction: Rewards now vary by crate size, armour, and supply value. Destroying an empty enemy crate pays half the normal cash and XP.
- Spotting: Rewards are around 30% lower than in Season 1 and scale with target value. Destroying a spotted target from another faction now pays 25% of the spotting reward instead of 50%.
- Exploit prevention: Spotting rewards account for build progress. Selling items from supply crates has diminishing returns, enemy-team sales no longer generate cash or XP, and FOB assistance rewards are divided among contributing players.
Vendor prices
- New weapons: PP-19 Bizon $1,000; TCX-SPR $3,200; Evo-3 Ultra $7,250; M14 $7,400.
- New vehicles: Wolf-110 $2,200; armed Wolf-110 $7,800; Flakpanzer Gepard $14,000; T-72B3 $16,000.
- New equipment: Molotov $340, plus new magazines, optics, bipods, muzzle devices, suppressors, and music tapes at the listed vendor prices.
- Price increases: The T-21, AMP-9, MP5, Super-45, Compound Bow, MGL-40, AMR 50, higher-tier armour and helmets, rangefinding equipment, basic parachute, and several armed vehicles become more expensive.
- Price decreases: The AK74, Deagle, Galil, RPG-7, MAAWS, PKM, FAL, several backpacks, Halligan Bar, Medical Bag, Field Resuscitator, and Sport Parachute become cheaper.
- Attachments: Many muzzle devices, grips, foregrips, and suppressors receive price cuts of up to roughly one-third.
Other changes and fixes
- Steam items: Steam Trading Cards and Point Shop items are planned for Season 2, pending Valve approval.
- Ammunition storage: 30mm cannon ammunition now occupies a 2×2 inventory slot instead of 1×1. Backpack stacks are capped at 50, while vehicle storage remains capped at 200.
- Assistance pings: The assistance-request ping timer increases from 20 to 60 seconds.
- Stability: The update includes additional quality-of-life changes, bug fixes, performance improvements, and server stability and security work.