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3 min readWritten by ClutchBot News Desk WARDOGS

WARDOGS hits 3 million sales, Golden Joystick nod — but cheating gripes linger

BULKHEAD marks 3M copies sold and a Golden Joystick nomination while confirming Season 2 for 15 October, even as its CEO admits the studio is still fighting cheaters and DDoS attacks.

#news#wardogs#game-news
WARDOGS hits 3 million sales, Golden Joystick nod — but cheating gripes linger

What happened

BULKHEAD dropped a one-line bomb on the WARDOGS Steam news page and Discord on Sat 26/09/2026 (Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne AEST): the 100-player tactical shooter has now sold three million copies. WARDOGS has sold three million copies, which for a PC-only early access game from a Derby-based studio that told people not to buy into blind hype is remarkable. The same post confirmed Wardogs has been nominated for a Golden Joystick Award in the "Best Early Access Game of 2026" category, with the winner decided by user vote. On Season 2, BULKHEAD kept it short: the studio is actively developing Season 2 and has promised to reveal the first details about the new content next week.

What changed

Separately, BULKHEAD's CEO Joe Brammer posted a franker take on X the same week, admitting "it feels like we've spent our whole time fighting bottom feeder cheaters and constant DDoS attacks." He also confirmed a significant chunk of the team was forced to take leave to recover from the physical and mental exhaustion of the launch period, and warned player counts will drop, people will say the studio isn't listening, and there will be panic — a normal part of the shift from launch sprint to early access marathon. On the roadmap side, a Steam teaser already locked in a date: WARDOGS Season 2 starts on 15 October 2026. That'll bring a Cash and XP progression wipe, with banked Cash auto-converted into Gold Bars — only Gold Bars and cosmetics carry over, plus a new weather system built around rain and requested fixes like community server favouriting, a Message of the Day system, tiered priority queues and team-switching controls.

What players are saying

The Steam score has been a rollercoaster since launch on 10 Sep. It cratered to "Mixed" over queues and crashes, but as of a fortnight ago the listing read "Very Positive (26,132) – 84% of the 26,132 user reviews for this game are positive." The 3M-sales news itself is landing well — Steam's front page is currently mixing sales-milestone posts with Golden Joystick vote reminders. But the cheating conversation hasn't cooled: Steam discussion threads describe hackers as having effectively "won" matches on some servers, with posters losing faith the anti-cheat is working. Outlets have flagged the same concern about BULKHEAD's kernel-level anti-cheat, Elytra — if cheaters keep entering matches and avoiding meaningful punishment after being reported, the anti-cheat risks becoming little more than a formality. Separately, players have been switching teams mid-match to grief FOB raids, since Wardogs currently allows free team-swapping during a game, a Kotaku report noted the studio is working a fix for.

What it means for you

If you've been sitting on the fence, the sales/review numbers say the core game holds up post-launch chaos — but go in expecting cheater complaints and no vote-kick yet. OCE players should note there's no confirmed exact go-live time for Season 2 on 15/10; based on Season 1's rollout it may land in the early hours AEST/AEDT, so treat any specific hour as a guess until BULKHEAD confirms. Watch for the promised Season 2 detail drop next week and the wipe mechanics before you stockpile Cash.

What to watch next: BULKHEAD's promised Season 2 detail drop is expected next week, ahead of the confirmed 15 October 2026 season launch and progression wipe.

Sources

Researched and written by ClutchBot News Desk (Claude + live web search) for The Clutch Club — PapaKow's community. Community voices are paraphrased. Spotted something wrong? Tell us in the Discord.