WARDOGS, a team-based “milsim” FPS positioned somewhere between Battlefield 6 and ARMA 3, has exploded in popularity since entering Early Access on Steam on Sept. 10. It’s already sold over two million copies in less than five days while reaching a peak of more than 428,000 concurrent players.
The scale of that launch has brought its own problems. Bulkhead has dealt with login queues, connection errors and server capacity issues, while players have also raised concerns about team balance.
The extraordinary response has also put the spotlight on how Bulkhead is coping with the game’s sudden success. CEO Joe Brammer has repeatedly discussed the team’s workload and development process on X, while pushing back against negative reports about the Bulkhead overtime work ethic.
WARDOGS’ Early Access Launch Leads to Server Issues
WARDOGS had already attracted significant attention before its Early Access release. More than 200,000 players were recorded concurrently during the last closed beta, which was designed as a stress-test on the game’s infrastructure.
That preparation wasn’t enough to prevent problems when Early Access opened, however, as well over 300,000 players jumped in. This led to the evening and night being filled with player complaints related to exceedingly long server queues, game crashes, and reports of players receiving “Access Denied” messages once reaching the end of a queue.
The blame was placed on Valve’s backend as Steam has to authenticate players before they can enter a game; some gamers saw this as another reason to throw shade at Steam following the recent Steam database game leak, but Bulkhead were quick to note that the issue was because it doesn’t have the budget of a AAA studio to handle so many players.
Bulkhead released a stability hotfix but the damage had already been done: a wave of negative Steam reviews were posted during the launch period. Much of the criticism centered on players being unable to access a game they’d purchased rather than dissatisfaction with WARDOGS’ core gameplay, though.
Bulkhead’s Workload Comes Under the Spotlight
None of this seems to have had that much of an adverse effect on WARDOGS, however. Bulkhead has continued to roll out fixes and is even welcoming more players; most recently, SteamDB recorded an all-time peak of 428,666 concurrent players on Sept. 13.
The numbers help explain why Bulkhead’s development team has suddenly had to operate at a very different scale. That work has also included dealing with server attacks and technical problems while continuing development. Brammer’s public comments have given players an unusually direct view of the pressure facing the studio, including its efforts to work through problems outside the team’s original expectations.
“I gotta take the L on this one guys, we’ve got it but it’s on me here,” he posted on X on the day of launch. The CEO has also become increasingly vocal when responding to reports about the game’s launch problems, server capacity and his stance on crunch in game development.
“I’m not going to get into a public debate about this, or any other of these out of context articles,” he posted on X today (Sept. 16), referring to a recent PC Gamer article that itself referred to Brammer’s recent interview with The Game Business. In this, Brammer spoke openly about the work ethic at Bulkhead, taking pains to highlight that the staff are rewarded for their work.
“For 50% of development we ran a 4 DAY WORK WEEK,” Brammer clarified in his post, with regards to a comment he made in the interview about crunch. “If we’re going to be a company who says, ‘We do crunch’, then we have to also say, ‘But you get something for it.’,” he said. “We want people to know that those people who do work hard get that return, and it is life-changing.”
WARDOGS Has a Blue Team Problem
Meanwhile, server capacity isn’t the only issue Bulkhead has had to address as players have also developed a strong dislike for Lonestar, WARDOGS’ Blue faction.
The game divides its 100-player battles between three teams: Lonestar, Valkyra and Manticore. Some players have reportedly begun avoiding Lonestar, creating situations where matches can take longer to fill because players don’t want to be assigned to the Blue team.
Players have offered several explanations, including claims about Lonestar’s starting position on a given map, and perceived effectiveness. However, there’s currently no confirmed evidence from Bulkhead that the faction is mechanically weaker than the other two; every player and each team can create their own loadout, with no typical classes usually seen in live service games.
For now, the Blue Team problem appears to be driven primarily by player perception. It’s another issue the studio will need to monitor as it collects more data from the game’s growing Early Access audience.
WARDOGS’ Success Creates New Challenges
Aside from the above issues, WARDOGS’ commercial performance has proven extremely successful. Brammer said that Bulkhead would have needed to shift at least 600,000 copies of the game to stand a chance to continue development, so selling 2 million in just five days means the studio now has the financial security to not just give all its staff the month of December off, but to look to the future.
This includes the need to hire additional staff while dealing with issues such as DDoS attacks and cheating. Those problems become considerably more difficult to manage when hundreds of thousands of players are active simultaneously. On top of this, Brammer confirmed that work on Season 2 will start soon.
“We’re entering the first phase of WARDOGS perfectly acceptable decline where people start to find issues with the balancing, or just disagree with design decisions. So, let’s start the next phase of development,” he said on X.
“Now remember, we’re in charge here, we’re the ones with the vision. However, you have a voice. Season 2 is going to bring lots of new content and changes. But…What is the biggest issue you are seeing right now that you would change mid-season?”
He then opened up the post to comments and suggestions from players, although he hasn’t said when they can expect to see Season 2 go live. For now, Bulkhead currently expects WARDOGS to remain in Early Access on PC for roughly one to two years, giving the studio time to expand and refine the game before its full 1.0 release. Console versions are planned for 2028.
The Last Word
WARDOGS has already achieved the commercial success Bulkhead needed, but its biggest challenge now is supporting that success. Two million sales and a 428,666-player peak are impressive numbers for an Early Access shooter, yet they’ve exposed weaknesses in the game’s infrastructure and raised questions about faction balance.
Brammer’s unusually direct communication has also made Bulkhead’s workload and disagreements with players and gaming press part of the story. The next stage will be about turning an explosive launch into a sustainable community.
Featured Image Credit
Image via Steam
