WARDOGS’ final closed beta will not begin until September 3, but its firing range already hit 30,000 players on September 2. Bulkhead opened the practice area roughly 24 hours early, giving players a chance to test weapons and drive Humvees before the main servers go live.
The beta will run from 18:00 UTC on Thursday, September 3, through 08:00 UTC on Sunday, September 6. It will not be a completely open test. Pre-order customers are guaranteed access, while other players can request an invitation through Steam Playtest without a guarantee that they will get in. The test comes one week before WARDOGS enters Steam Early Access on September 10.
Bulkhead originally planned to reveal the beta as a surprise during the FPS Games Show livestream. Teasers led some fans to expect a free-for-all open beta, so game director Joe Brammer confirmed the plan ahead of the broadcast. Access will cost $40 through a pre-order, with the controlled rollout aimed at producing more useful server data than an unrestricted flood of players.
WHY ISN’T IT JUST OPEN? 🤔
On the surface, this might seem like a good idea, if you’re comparing our systems to AAA Franchises, they have very mature and proven systems that have been used on countless iterations of their franchises.
Imagine there is a house fire, you’re a… https://t.co/10XFBCO0TJ
— Joe Brammer (@Brammflakes) September 1, 2026
Bulkhead is testing launch-scale traffic
WARDOGS is built around 100-player tactical battles, and its first beta already showed how quickly interest can turn into a technical problem. Nearly 500,000 players took part in that earlier test, which left the servers so crowded that players could not get into matches during the first hour.
Bulkhead now wants to watch specific pressure points, including the login queue and server browser. Brammer explained that having more than 100,000 people repeatedly click through the browser would reveal problems that a simple queue test would miss. The goal is to learn how the systems behave under the kind of demand the game could face when Early Access begins, rather than create the largest possible player count for its own sake.
The firing range filled up a day early
That plan immediately met a smaller version of the same problem. Tens of thousands of players entered the firing range as soon as it opened, even though the full beta was still a day away. Bulkhead reacted in all caps, asking why 25,000 people were already using the range and calling them crazy.
WHY ARE 25,000 OF YOU GETTING INTO THE SHOOTING RANGE, YOU PEOPLR ARE CRAZY.
— Joe Brammer (@Brammflakes) September 2, 2026
The range later reached 30,000 players. Participants used the early access window to try out guns, shoot practice targets, and circle the area in Humvees, turning a warm-up feature into another quick test of WARDOGS’ infrastructure. The response also shows why Bulkhead is being careful with the final beta, even after a previous test attracted an audience large enough to overwhelm its servers.
WARDOGS’ final closed beta begins September 3. Tell us what you think in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
Wardogs
Developed by Bulkhead
