A tactical shooter from BULKHEAD, published by Team17: one hundred players, three factions, a fight over a zone, and an economy where every death costs you real money. What follows is what is actually known — with labels saying how far each fact can be trusted.
One hundred players split into three hostile teams fight over a control zone inside a large map. The winner is not whoever killed most, but whoever held the zone longest. Money and progression carry between matches, and it is the money that decides what you walk out with next time.
This is not a battle royale — nothing shrinks, and the last player standing interests nobody. It is not Tarkov either: you do not find your kit, you buy it before deploying with money you earned earlier. Its closest relatives are the big tactical shooters like Squad, but with a shop and a personal bank balance for everyone.
CONFIRMED Every 30 seconds a point goes to the team with more people inside the active control zone. Not the team that killed more — the team physically holding it. The first side to 100 points wins the match.
Almost all of the game's tactics follow from that. Killing an enemy is useful; bringing three of your own people in, reviving two of them and denying the enemy entry is more useful still. Which is why picking a teammate up, driving and logistics are not «support actions» in WARDOGS — they are a direct route to points.
Match length swings hard: when one team is clearly stronger it is over in about half an hour; an even fight can run up to two hours. Plan your session accordingly — this is not a ten-minute round.
Besides the ordinary zone there is a Hot Zone — a point that changes the tempo of the fight and pulls everyone towards it at once.
CONFIRMED Your account opens once with $10,000 and never refills on its own. Money carries from match to match, and death takes everything you were carrying. So the question «what should I take» always really means «how much am I willing to lose this time».
You do not only earn by shooting: the game pays for reviving teammates, driving them around, delivering supplies and holding objectives. A player who hauls and rescues earns as well as one who frags.
And if you do burn through it all — COMMUNITY bankrupt players get a free starter kit, so the game never traps you with nothing. There is no full progress wipe.
To cost out your own deployment, use the run profitability calculator and starter kits: what it costs to gear up, and the survival odds at which that stops losing money.
CONFIRMED The game has no fixed classes. Before every life you buy a kit — weapon, gear, vehicle — and the purchase is what makes you whatever you are for that life. Die and you buy again, and nothing forces you to buy the same thing.
Progression runs through six branches: Assault, Medic, Support, Recon, Driver, Pilot. Experience in a branch unlocks new equipment, but you can freely mix items from different branches in one kit — a branch gates access to things, not your playstyle.
Those same six roles are the backbone of our contract board: when you are putting a squad together, it is obvious who is missing.
CONFIRMED The default respawn is at your faction's base, and the base is a long way from the zone. The trip back costs time, and that is what makes every death expensive in minutes as well as money.
But if your team has driven a respawn vehicle into the zone, you can come back straight into it — once every five minutes. One of those in the right place is worth more than several kills.
CONFIRMED Helicopters, tanks and artillery are bought with the same money as a rifle. Vehicles are not lying around the map — taking one is a decision to sink a whole life's budget into a single machine.
Prices run from $500 for a Bobcat to $18,000 for a Havoc: see the vehicle section and the cargo planner.
| Players per server | 100 · three teams |
| Win condition | a point every 30 seconds to whoever has more people in the zone · first to 100 |
| Match length | from about 30 minutes to 2 hours |
| Map and zone | 16.384 km per side · control zones of 2×2 km |
| Factions | LONESTAR · VALKYRA · MANTICORE (gameplay differences unconfirmed) |
| Economy | $10,000 once at the start · money persists between matches · death takes your kit |
| Progression | six branches: assault, medic, support, recon, driver, pilot |
| Respawn | faction base · or a respawn vehicle in the zone, once every 5 minutes |
| Destruction | buildings can be destroyed and fortifications built |
| Voice chat | proximity voice |
| Monetisation | none during Early Access beyond the cosmetic Supporter Pack |
| Upscalers | DLSS / FSR / XeSS supported |
| Early Access | 10.09.2026 · Standard and Supporter editions (₴829 / ₴1,029 in the Ukrainian store, regional pricing) · 1–2 years in EA |
| OS | Windows 10 (64-bit) |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-8600 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500 |
| Memory | 16 GB |
| Graphics | Nvidia GTX 1660 / Radeon RX 590 |
| Storage | 50 GB |
| OS | Windows 11 (64-bit) |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5700X |
| Memory | 16 GB |
| Graphics | Nvidia RTX 3070 / Radeon RX 6700 XT |
| Storage | 50 GB |
Source: the official Steam page ✅ · the beta build weighed around 38 GB on disk, so the 50 GB requirement leaves room for updates.
10 September 2026 in Steam Early Access. The developers say plainly that EA will last one to two years.
Two editions: Standard and Supporter, the latter adding cosmetics only. Steam prices are regional — in the Ukrainian store they are ₴829 and ₴1,029, so check your own store page for the local figure.
A tactical shooter by BULKHEAD, published by Team17. A hundred players split into three hostile teams fight over a control zone inside a large map. You win by holding the zone longest, not by killing the most.
No, and the developers say so directly. Nothing shrinks and survival is not the goal: points come from presence in the active zone, and the first team to 100 points wins.
From about half an hour when one team is clearly stronger, up to two hours in an even fight. This is not a ten-minute session.
One hundred, split across three factions: LONESTAR, VALKYRA and MANTICORE. Gameplay differences between the factions are not officially confirmed.
No fixed classes: what you are for a given life is decided by what you bought before deploying. Progression runs through six branches (assault, medic, support, recon, driver, pilot), and you can mix equipment from different branches freely.
Not only by killing. The game pays for reviving teammates, driving them around, delivering supplies and holding zones. Playing driver or medic feeds you as well as playing gunner.
Bankrupt players are handed a free starter kit and can climb back from zero. There is no full progress wipe.
For the Early Access period the studio committed to adding no in-game purchases. The only exception is the optional cosmetic Supporter Pack. The whole in-game economy runs on money you earn yourself.
Nobody knows for certain. Only the existence of three sides is confirmed: LONESTAR, VALKYRA and MANTICORE. Whether they have unique weapons or perks has no official answer. It is the main question we expect answered at the show on 3 September.
14 languages for interface and subtitles; full voice-over is English only. The full list, straight from Steam.
The mechanics are assembled from official BULKHEAD and Team17 material, the Steam page, and previews by major outlets after the closed tests. Anything not officially confirmed is labelled as such and never passed off as fact. Spotted a mismatch with the game? Tell us in the chat and we will fix it with a source attached.
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