WARDOGS: How to Play With Friends

WARDOGS does not hand you a party button on the main menu. There is no lobby to invite friends into, no group queue, and no way to lock a four-stack together before you deploy. Getting everyone onto the same battlefield is a manual job, and with 100 players split across three factions, landing in the same match is only half the work.

Quick answer: Have one friend join a server, pick a faction, and create a squad. Then open your Steam friends list, right-click their name, and select “Join Game” — you will be dropped into the same server, faction, and squad, provided there is space.

WARDOGS has no lobby or party system

The main menu gives you DEPLOY, FIRING RANGE, and LEARN TO PLAY. None of those are a party screen. DEPLOY opens a server browser, and that browser is where coordination happens — you pick a region, pick a numbered server, and join it. Your friends have to do exactly the same thing, on exactly the same row.

WARDOGS soldier in standard combat gear during an early access match — WARDOGS drops up to 100 players and three factions onto one battlefield. Image: BULKHEAD

The second complication is the three-faction structure. Valkyra, Lonestar, and Manticore all fight over the same objectives, so sharing a server does not mean sharing a side. Pick the wrong colour on the Select Faction screen and you will spend the match shooting at your friends instead of alongside them.

Fastest way to play with friends: Steam Join Game

Skip the server browser entirely if one person is already in. This route handles the server, the faction, and the squad in a single click, and it is by far the least painful option during busy hours.

Send one person in first. They join any server and faction they like, then load into the match properly before anyone else tries to follow.

Have that player create a squad immediately. Press Escape, choose Create Squad, and leave it open rather than locked so the rest of the group can slot in without needing manual invites.

Open your Steam friends list, right-click the player who is already in the match, and select “Join Game.” Everyone else in the group does the same.

Wait for the connection to finish. If the faction is full when you arrive, you may still land on the server without being placed on the same side, so check your team before you spawn.

Manual method: Match the region, server number, and faction

If nobody is in a match yet, or the Steam option is greyed out, you do it the long way. Agree on the region and the exact server number in a voice call before anyone clicks anything — that one conversation prevents almost every failure below.

Get back to the main menu if you are mid-match. Open the pause menu and select LEAVE MATCH, then wait for the return-to-menu screen to finish.

RETURNING TO MENU screen shown after leaving the Area of Operations in WARDOGS — The RETURNING TO MENU screen appears while you exit the Area of Operations. Image: BULKHEAD

Click DEPLOY on the main menu. This opens the SERVER BROWSER rather than throwing you straight into matchmaking.

Open the region menu and select the region your group agreed on, such as North America (Central), then press CONFIRM. Pick the region where everyone gets a workable ping, not just the closest one to whoever is loudest.

SELECT REGION dialog in WARDOGS with North America (Central) highlighted — The SELECT REGION dialog with NORTH AMERICA (CENTRAL) chosen before confirming. Image: BULKHEAD

Scroll the list and find the exact server row your group picked, for example OFFICIAL WARDOGS | North America (Central) | #68. Each row shows the map, the mode, and the player count, so check whether it reads 100/100 before you commit.

WARDOGS Server Browser with an Official North America (Central) server row selected — The Server Browser highlights Official Wardogs | North America (Central) #7 and its Bakurani server details. Image: BULKHEAD

Press JOIN MATCH and stay in the queue. A full server is not a dead end — players disconnect constantly, and backing out to retry usually costs more time than waiting does.

Call out your faction on the Select Faction screen before anyone confirms. Say the name and the colour out loud, because this is the last point where the whole plan can quietly fall apart.

Note: server numbers are per-region. Europe (Central) #161 has nothing to do with #161 in any other region, so “one-sixty-one” on its own is not enough information for your friends.

Server Browser showing the Official Wardogs Europe (Central) #161 server row and its details — The Europe (Central) list runs its own numbering, here with server #161 selected. Image: BULKHEAD

How to create or join a squad in WARDOGS

Squads are formed inside the match, not before it. Once you have spawned, press Escape to open the squad menu. You will see the existing squads — Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and so on — along with a Create Squad option at the top.

If a friend already made one and left it open, select it and join. If every squad is locked, including theirs, the squad leader has to pull you in manually from the Unassigned Players list. Creating a squad yourself and leaving it open is generally the cleaner move, since anyone on your faction can then drop in without an invite exchange.

The squad layer also splits your voice. Proximity chat carries to anyone nearby, friend or enemy within earshot, while squad chat stays private to your group. Keep route calls, revive requests, and vehicle plans on the squad channel.

How to confirm your friends are in your squad

WARDOGS colours squadmates gold, and that is the fastest visual check that the whole process worked. If your friends still look like generic teammates, you are on the same faction but not in the same squad.

What to check	Squadded up	Not squadded
Minimap arrows	Gold	Standard team colour
Downed player icon	Gold revive marker	Green revive marker
Squad menu (Escape)	Names listed under your squad	Names sit elsewhere or in Unassigned Players
Voice	Heard on squad chat at any distance	Only audible through proximity chat

Why friends end up in different matches (and how to fix it)

Almost every failure traces back to one of a handful of causes, and none of them require restarting the game.

Problem	Fix
Everyone loaded into different matches	Compare the full server string, not just the number — region and number must both match.
Server shows 100/100	Stay in the queue instead of backing out; slots open as players disconnect.
Friends are on the map but hostile	Someone confirmed a different faction. One of you needs to leave and rejoin on the correct side.
Squad invite or join request fails	Have the leader disband the squad and create it again, then re-join.
Stuck on a loading screen	Give the connection time before restarting; queues run long during peak traffic.
One player disconnects repeatedly	Check that person’s network setup — a restrictive NAT configuration can break connections that work fine for everyone else.

None of this is elegant, and it is the sort of friction you expect from an early access build that is still filling in its menus. Whether a proper pre-game party system arrives later has not been announced. Until then, the Steam Join Game route is the shortcut worth memorising, and a thirty-second call to agree on a region, a server number, and a faction does the rest.