Bulkhead pushed the Season 1 Changelog for Wardogs on September 9th, 2026, one day before the 100-player shooter opens on Steam Early Access. Most of it is not bug fixing. The bulk of the update rewrites how fast you level, what the big-ticket vehicles cost, and which class track you have to grind to reach them. If you played the closed betas, the numbers you memorized are gone.
Quick answer: Levels 10 to 20 now cost up to 124.2% more XP than they did in beta, the Artillery Tank has moved from Career 55 to Career 90 and costs $500,000, and the Heavy Tank has jumped tracks entirely from Career 35 to Driver 35. Check your class track before you plan a launch-day purchase.
Wardogs progression curve: levels 10 to 20 are the wall
The beta XP curve was built for weekend tests, so it handed out unlocks fast. Season 1 undoes that. The steepest part of the new curve sits between levels 10 and 20, then the requirements flatten out from level 35 onward instead of continuing to climb. Bulkhead’s stated target is that a median player at 20 to 25 hours lands somewhere around level 20, while the top few percent chasing the heaviest hardware are meant to feel the grind.
Anything below level 6 is untouched. The curve also resets each season, with a different XP track and a different item order every time.
| Level | Old XP | New XP | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 8,750 | 9,250 | 5.7% slower |
| 10 | 25,000 | 35,000 | 40.0% slower |
| 15 | 54,750 | 110,000 | 100.9% slower |
| 20 | 111,500 | 250,000 | 124.2% slower |
| 25 | 192,000 | 325,000 | 69.3% slower |
| 30 | 293,750 | 400,000 | 36.2% slower |
| 35 | 416,500 | 500,000 | 20.0% slower |
| 40 | 551,250 | 650,000 | 17.9% slower |
| 45 | 689,500 | 800,000 | 16.0% slower |
| 50 | 838,000 | 1,000,000 | 19.3% slower |
The same rebalance applies to the role XP track from level 6 upward, so class levelling slows in step with your career level rather than lagging behind it.
XP payout changes for air kills and supply crate sales
Two XP events were trimmed. Killing a player while flying an air vehicle now pays 250 XP instead of 300. The bigger cut targets an exploit rather than a playstyle: selling a supply crate item worth under $75 now returns 1 XP instead of 25, which kills the loop of farming XP by dumping cheap items.
The supply crate purchase curve was rescaled to match, moving from a 25 to 250 range down to 1 to 200 so low-value items are priced in line with what they actually do.
Wardogs economy changes: vendor, scope, and vehicle prices
Prices moved in both directions. Forward Operating Base and Large Hammer costs went up specifically so that building a fortified position is a real spending decision rather than a default. Several ground vehicles got cheaper to make the Driver track escalate more smoothly.
| Item | Old price | New price |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor, Forward Operating Base | $2,500 | $7,500 |
| Vendor, Large Hammer | $1,600 | $2,400 |
| Career, Artillery Tank | $400,000 | $500,000 |
| Recon, 6-10x MRAD scope | $25,000 | $40,000 |
| Recon, 6-10x MOA scope | $30,000 | $45,000 |
| Support, Medium Hammer | $10,000 | $25,000 |
| Support, Large Hammer | $25,000 | $75,000 |
| Pilot, small armoured supply crate | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| Pilot, Little Bird with miniguns | $25,000 | $50,000 |
| Pilot, Z20 Lakota | $50,000 | $35,000 |
| Driver, URAL | $50,000 | $35,000 |
| Driver, Dune Buggy | $35,000 | $25,000 |
| Driver, Kodiak Flatbed | $15,000 | $35,000 |
| Driver, Music Tape H | $5,000 | $2,500 |
Season 1.0 unlock levels by class
The Driver track took the most work. Early transport now unlocks sooner, the Kodiak Flatbed moved much later, and the attack vehicles were pulled down so the class builds toward something instead of stalling. Two headline unlocks changed the most: the Artillery Tank is now a very late Career unlock, and the Heavy Tank left the Career track for Driver.
| Class | Unlock | Old → New level |
|---|---|---|
| Career | Sports Parachute | 36 → 35 |
| Career | Large Backpack | 56 → 55 |
| Career | 762x54mm AP | 83 → 82 |
| Career | 556mm AP | 85 → 83 |
| Career | Deagle | 90 → 85 |
| Career | Artillery Tank | 55 → 90 |
| Medic | PP-19 50 round drum magazine | 33 → 29 |
| Support | Large Hammer | 7 → 8 |
| Driver | URAL | 4 → 3 |
| Driver | Kodiak Assault | 8 → 6 |
| Driver | Dune Buggy | 10 → 8 |
| Driver | Kodiak Flatbed | 2 → 10 |
| Driver | Large Supply Crate | 20 → 16 |
| Driver | URAL Covered | 30 → 18 |
| Driver | Music Tape H | Pilot 28 → Driver 23 |
| Driver | URAL Attack | 40 → 25 |
| Driver | Humvee with minigun | 35 → 30 |
| Driver | Heavy Tank | Career 35 → Driver 35 |
Note: Driver levels come from driving, transporting, and vehicle work, so a high career level will not hand you the Heavy Tank any more. You have to earn it inside the class.
Vehicle handling, turret speed, and loadout space
The Z20 Lakota got a balance pass, along with a fix for sluggish pitch and a 6 dB reduction to the chase camera rotation rattle. Helicopter input damping now applies across every input device rather than only some.
- Vehicle turrets now have a maximum operator rotation speed.
- 155mm, 122mm, and flare deployables take up more loadout space.
- A DPI issue that affected tank aiming has been fixed.
Performance and crash fixes, including the DLSS Frame Generation toggle
DLSS Frame Generation can be switched off without restarting the game, and the render target pool is now configurable. Shadow cache refreshes were reduced, which cuts the hitch you get when taking control of a character, and shadow quality is now clamped to Low on high benchmark scores rather than being disabled outright.
Several crash paths were closed: two in the frame generation pipeline, one from network calls scheduled off the game thread, one when closing a chatbox entry tooltip, one involving buildables, and one that triggered when firing a weapon whose owner had already left. GPU crash reports carry more detail now, a legacy graphics dependency was removed, and dropped items no longer affect navigation, which reclaims a small amount of performance. Startup reliability was improved too, with clearer messages and a recovery route when something fails early.
Church roof exploit fix and the new weighted report system
An exploit that let players reach an unintended position on the church roof has been patched out. On the moderation side, Wardogs now runs a report tracking system that weights submissions, so repeat and bad-faith reporters carry less influence than players who report accurately.
Cheater bans are announced in server when match termination is turned off, so you get confirmation that action was taken without the round ending. The “kicked from server” message also only appears now if you were genuinely banned, rather than after ordinary disconnects.
Server browser and voice chat fixes
Server browser filtering was reworked, community server images no longer scale incorrectly, and the “Host a server” button links straight through to the hosting page instead of dumping you elsewhere.
Voice chat was one of the loudest beta complaints, and the specific failure has been addressed. Voice cutting out permanently after a failed join is fixed, and stale channel rejoins, push-to-talk targeting, and re-login all recover properly now. Reliability under load was improved and there is a visible communication status so you can tell whether your mic is actually connected.
How to join a friend’s squad through Steam
If in-game squad joining refuses to put you on the right team, Steam’s presence system is the reliable route. Note that you can only join a session through presence if you are friends with that player.
When Wardogs Early Access starts
Wardogs enters Steam Early Access on September 10th, 2026, with pre-load already live. It costs $39.99 for the Standard Edition and $49.99 for the Supporter Edition, which adds cosmetics only. Launch content covers roughly 37 weapons, 21 vehicles, and 3 maps, and Bulkhead has said the game will stay in Early Access for somewhere between 12 and 24 months.
The full Season 1 Changelog is posted on the game’s Steam news page. If you spent the betas sitting on a big cash pile and a comfortable unlock list, treat launch as a reset. The prices, the tracks, and the XP thresholds are all different now, and the vehicles that decided beta matches sit much further away than they used to.
