Release date delays are all too common in the games industry, and it’s highly unusual for a game to be ready to launch sooner than its developers planned. Wardogs, an upcoming first-person shooter from Bulkhead, finds itself in that rare scenario. According to the team behind the game, Wardogs will launch into early access on Steam much sooner than expected, after pre-release testing feedback was “very positive.”
A statement posted to the game’s official X account reads: “We have reached an inflection point in our journey. The feedback from thousands of testers is very positive, players are telling us our performance and optimization has exceeded their expectations, and most importantly, they’re saying the game is fun. As a result, we have made the decision to bring forward our early access release date. Wardogs will be releasing into early access later this summer.”
According to its Steam page, Wardogs bills itself as a “tactical all-out warfare FPS where 100 players split across three teams fight over the control zone.” From trailers, it looks very Battlefield-inspired, but in a Q&A video earlier this year, the team made clear that they’re aiming for a sweet spot between more arcade-focused shooters and those that are more “realistic.”
The statement also explains that studio is tempering its expectations: “Our goal was never to be the biggest FPS. It was to build a healthy, sustainable community and to learn from past mistakes and apply those lessons to Wardogs. We have planned to sustain a community of 3,000 to 5,000 players, and anything beyond that is a bonus.”
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You may recall Battalion 1944, Bulkhead’s 2019 FPS, which offered a highly competitive environment, similar to Counter-Strike and Valorant in its precision shooting mechanics, and saw considerable success. However, according to a statement on Bulkhead’s website, the game and studio as a whole “couldn’t sustain the player base required to be a mass market shooter we dreamed of long term.” As a result, support for Battalion 1944 was eventually halted, and the game now exists only as Battalion: Legacy and has almost no players, according to SteamDB.
As a result, there are plenty of eyes on Bulkhead with the launch of Wardogs, and due to the studio’s previous success launching an FPS, high expectations to boot. A new gameplay trailer will be shown during the Future Games Show at 3 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 6.
