PapaKow plays WARDOGS100 players, three teams, one control zone. The tactical all-out-warfare FPS that has become PapaKow's best content — loadouts, clips and answers here.
WARDOGS is a tactical all-out-warfare shooter from Bulkhead (the Battalion 1944 crew), published by Team17. Up to 100 players split across three teams fight over a randomised 2 × 2 km control zone carved out of a huge, destructible sandbox set in derelict industrial mountains in Eastern Europe. The team with the most people in the zone scores; stand in the hot zone and you count double. First team to 100 points wins.
The bit that makes it different is the cash system. Every account starts with $10,000 and you buy your loadout — weapons, armour, gadgets, even vehicles — before you spawn. Cash persists between matches and you earn it by fighting, reviving, driving people to the zone and running logistics. Lose expensive kit and you feel it. There's no battle pass and no microtransactions; it's a $39.99 USD game (Supporter Edition $49.99) that went into Steam Early Access on 10 September 2026 after a closed beta in August. It's Windows-only on Steam for now, built on Unreal Engine 5, with proximity voice chat that makes the whole thing feel like the Arma 3 King of the Hill servers it was inspired by.
Because it rewards the way Karl already plays: talk to your squad, hold ground, make the clutch when it's three-on-one in the zone. Every fight matters because every death costs money, and three teams means the match is never a straight line — the leader gets sandwiched, the underdogs team up. It's been PapaKow's best-performing content since the beta, and it's the main game on Friday nights and the Saturday and Sunday sessions.
Squad-first. Karl runs viewer squads from The Clutch Club — first in, first served, members' spots held — and plays the objective rather than farming kills. Chat votes on his next loadout live on papakow.com, so the builds below are a starting point, not gospel.
PapaKow's picks (beta, will change). WARDOGS is in Early Access and the economy, weapons and maps are still moving. These loadouts are what Karl was running in the beta and launch week; he updates them from the Command Center as things change.
These are the builds Karl actually runs on stream. Chat votes on the next loadout live on papakow.com, so they change — last updated 1 November 2026.
The bread-and-butter build for actually winning the zone. Spend on armour and meds before fancy guns; smoke lets the squad push the hot zone and count double without eating a sniper.
Hold the high ground over the zone and call targets on proximity chat. Karl runs this when the squad has enough bodies inside — an overwatch that wanders into the zone is just an expensive death.
The bank-builder. Transport, revives and logistics all pay, so ferrying the squad in and picking them up prints cash while everyone else bleeds it. Run this after a bad night to rebuild the balance.
Under $2,000 all in. Die cheap, loot the field for kit and money, and get back to the zone. Surprisingly strong in buildings and around the hot zone where fights are close.
OCE DOGS is a fan-run community hub for WARDOGS players in Australia and New Zealand. It runs a live King-of-the-Hill server in Sydney, a forum, clans, leaderboards, tournaments and a stats database, and it's free to jo…
I'm an official OCE DOGS partner. If you join through my link, I get credit for bringing you in. It costs you nothing.
If you like tactical shooters with actual stakes — Arma-style King of the Hill, Squad, Hell Let Loose, or the sweatier side of Battlefield — yes. The three-team control-zone fights and the persistent cash economy make every death matter, and there's no battle pass or microtransactions in the $39.99 price. It is Early Access (since 10 September 2026), so expect balance changes and bugs. Watch a stream first: PapaKow plays it live on papakow.com most nights from 6 pm and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12:30 pm (Brisbane time), so you can see what a real match looks like before you buy.
WARDOGS is a 100-player tactical FPS by Bulkhead, published by Team17, built on Unreal Engine 5. Three teams fight over a randomised 2 × 2 km control zone inside a large destructible map set in Eastern Europe; the team with the most players in the zone scores, and the first to 100 points wins. You buy your loadout — guns, armour, gadgets, vehicles — with in-game cash that persists between matches and is earned through combat, revives, transport and logistics. It's on Steam for Windows.
Early on, the best WARDOGS loadout is the one you can afford to lose. PapaKow's beta picks are a Zone Anchor (assault rifle, armour, medkit, smokes) for holding the objective, a Ridge Overwatch (DMR or bolt-action) for the squad's spotter, a Payroll Driver (cheap carbine plus a vehicle and repair kit) to earn cash from transport and revives, and a Budget Rat (cheapest SMG, bandages, one grenade) for when the bank is empty. The full cards with notes are on this page and get updated as the game changes; chat votes on the next loadout live during the stream.
WARDOGS is the main game right now: it headlines Friday night (from 6 pm) and the Saturday and Sunday sessions (from 12:30 pm until late), and it comes up most weeknights too — all Brisbane time (AEST, UTC+10). PapaKow streams every day: Monday to Friday from 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 12:30 pm until late (Brisbane time, AEST — no daylight saving). The schedule page on papakow.com converts the times to your timezone and counts down to the next stream.
Watch ad-free on papakow.com, or on Twitch (twitch.tv/papakow), Kick (kick.com/papakow) and YouTube (@papakoww). It's the same stream everywhere; papakow.com is the ad-free one with site chat, loadout votes and music requests.
Both. PapaKow streams to Twitch (twitch.tv/papakow), Kick (kick.com/papakow) and YouTube (youtube.com/@papakoww) at the same time, and the main stream lives on his own site, papakow.com, with no ads. Chat from every platform shows up in one place on the site.
Yes — The Clutch Club. The Clutch Club Discord is free to join from papakow.com/community. It's where WARDOGS squads get organised (first in, first served; members' spots are held), where stream alerts go out, and where you run /link so your ClutchPoints count across Twitch, Kick, YouTube and the site.
Yes. Viewer squads run through the LFG channel in The Clutch Club Discord while the stream is live — first in, first served, with members' spots held. Own the game on Steam, have a working mic, keep it clean and play the objective. Cheaters are removed from the Club.
WARDOGS entered Steam Early Access on 10 September 2026 (closed beta ran 21–23 August 2026). It's $39.99 USD for the standard edition and $49.99 USD for the Supporter Edition, with no battle pass or microtransactions. It's Windows-only via Steam; the developers have said they're working on Proton/Linux support. No console version has been confirmed.
Staying with your squad pays the most. On Saturday 19 September 2026 PapaKow's team earned at least 100k a game by running together and wiping teams. Defibs (reviving teammates) and the spotting scope are reliable low-risk earners between fights. Driving supply trucks pays around 7k a run and isn't worth more than about two runs — a full game spent delivering supplies under attack earned 35k. The fastest way to lose money is giving up after a bad death: one frustrated re-buy cycle can cost $20,000 without firing a shot.
Because they were unloaded outside the Forward Operating Base. Supplies must be dropped inside the FOB square shown on your map — outside it they're out of range and cannot be collected. A truck carries two pallets, and the game unloads one off the front and one off the rear, so park with room. Teammates collect by running up and holding F for roughly 20 seconds. On Saturday 19 September 2026 PapaKow's team lost at least six pallets to supplies dropped outside the FOB.
Play Australian evenings for real fights and late at night for money. On Saturday 19 September 2026 PapaKow found at least three games in a row late at night went stale on OCE, with the hot zone held for entire games and almost no pushback — in the last one the squad abandoned the hot zone and hunted kills out of boredom. Quiet lobbies make farming easy but poor games, so peak hours are better if you want contested objectives.
Yes. On OCE servers on Monday 21 September 2026, PapaKow found plenty of solo players doing well on their own: laying mines outside FOBs, sniping players leaving base, flanking the hot zone and hunting artillery with C4. Solo works best on the edges of the map. If you want to play the objective alone, join a squad in the lobby, because the hot zone rewards coordination.
About 36 ms. PapaKow measured it from Brisbane on OCE Server #61 on 22 September 2026 — it held around 36 ms for the whole session with one minor stutter. WARDOGS runs numbered OCE servers, so Australian and New Zealand players aren't routed offshore to play. That's one night on one server from one connection, not a benchmark: your number will move with your ISP, your suburb and which server you land on.
Yes. Reviving an enemy player is a built-in feature in WARDOGS, not an exploit. PapaKow was asked this on 22 September 2026, after a mate was sniped on a hill, revived by the same sniper, and invited to help kill the other team. Using the revive isn't teaming — it's a tool the devs put in the game. Where it gets murky is two full teams coordinating in the same Discord call to take a third team apart; that's less a feature being used and more an arrangement.
Off the obvious spot and out of low ground. PapaKow built a FOB in a gully on 22 September 2026 that every side could shoot down into — but the first FOB destroyed that round was the one in the main area of Castle, because it's the most popular blue team spot and everybody knows to check it. Protect the FOB first, keep real cover overhead rather than building in an open clearing between trees, and say your build out loud so teammates don't wall off what you needed open.
Not as far as anyone has confirmed. Bulkhead has confirmed one progression wipe — Season 2 on Thursday 15 October 2026 — and it's the game's first. They haven't said it will happen every season, so treat recurring wipes as unconfirmed. The 15 October wipe resets your purchases, your level and your XP progression; your in-game cash converts into Gold Bars you spend on Black Market cosmetics, so the money you earned in Season 1 isn't simply deleted. PapaKow's read, playing on OCE from Brisbane through Season 1, is that this one is about giving the devs a clean data set after a season's worth of changes rather than becoming a seasonal habit — but that's a player's guess, not a dev statement.
Yes, if you're comfortable with a full progression wipe on 15 October 2026 and with systems changing under you mid-season. PapaKow plays it on OCE from Brisbane and measured about 36 ms on OCE Server #61 on 22 September 2026, with one minor stutter across that session — one night on one connection, not a benchmark. The reason to buy it now is the social layer: proximity voice chat that reaches your squad, your team and the enemy in front of you, which PapaKow rates at roughly 80% of what the game is. Skip it for now if you want a finished, stable shooter, or if you play with voice chat muted — muted, you're buying about 20% of the game.
Yes, though how many is not measured. On the OCE servers over the nights leading into Tuesday 29 September 2026, PapaKow ran into two clear cases: a chopper pilot one-shotting buildings with missiles and then instantly crashing into the ground to bury the evidence, several times in one night, and a player self-reviving in a game that has no self-revive. Plenty of other suspicious moments are explainable — WARDOGS has spotter scopes, so a player who seems to know exactly where you are may simply have been spotted and called out. Bulkhead has publicly said it is stretched fighting cheaters and DDoS attacks, which is more than most studios admit.
Yes, and PapaKow rates it as the bigger problem than cheating right now. Over the nights leading into Tuesday 29 September 2026 he saw players switch teams, C4 their own side's vehicles and switch back; players walling up the inside of a friendly base to burn its resources; and streamers being team killed for posting their channel in the lobby. In one warehouse fight a player called Lion built layers of walls around the squad while they were clearing a path for the APC, then respawned into the vehicle and tried to team kill everyone. Karl's fix is tighter rules on changing teams mid-match, plus letting a group of mates land in the same game on the same team — he plays with up to 10 different people in a night and gets split across lobbies.
Yes. Team switching mid-match is a feature, and between 27 and 29 September 2026 PapaKow had players switch onto his team from Brisbane, C4 the squad's vehicles and switch straight back, plus a player called Lion who walled his squad into a warehouse they had taken, respawned inside their APC and tried to team kill everyone in it. The feature exists because WARDOGS has no modern party system, so friends join the same server and switch onto the same side to play together, and there is no vote-kick to remove a griefer from a match that can run over an hour. Kotaku reported the same pattern on 15 September 2026, and Bulkhead's Joe Brammer said on 13 September 2026 that they were deciding on a design fix, with team-switching changes listed on the Steam roadmap.
A low ping only tells you the distance to the server is fine, not that the server is keeping up. PapaKow measured 19 ms from Brisbane on OCE Server #96 and again on OCE Server #7 across 27-29 September 2026 and still got a freeze on one and heavy rubber banding on the other, plus a supply truck braking every 20-30 m. Other players have been reporting rubber banding and yellow/red network warnings on the Steam discussions since around 11 September 2026, some showing under 50 ms in the server browser and 300-400 ms in game. If your ping to an OCE server is already under 50, the route is not your problem and a tunnelling client will not fix it - note the server number and the time and report it in game.
Yes - PapaKow ran into two clear cases from Brisbane between 27 and 29 September 2026: a chopper pilot who missiled a building, killed the players inside and then instantly crashed himself into the ground on several occasions, and a player who revived himself in a game that has no self-revive. How widespread it is is not measured. Bulkhead's published security and enforcement policy, last updated 7 September 2026, says anti-cheat runs alongside WARDOGS whenever you play online, that cheating and tampering are the most likely infractions to earn a permanent or hardware ban with no prior warning, that only permanent account bans can be appealed with a response aimed at within 30 days, and that in-game reports tell them where to point the detection. The policy does not name the anti-cheat provider.
A short, undocumented server fault was patched fast via the AU/NZ Discord, landing in a season already strained by region-lock backlash and a sliding playerbase.
A Steam reply from a Bulkhead dev confirms the new date, as the studio owns up to overloading Season 2 and promises longer, calmer seasons ahead.
Bulkhead's anti-cheat ping cap is splitting the community, with Australian players reporting they can no longer group with SEA friends.
All times are Australia/Brisbane (AEST, UTC+10, no daylight saving). The full schedule converts them to your timezone and counts down to the next stream.
