The last game of the developers behind Wardogs ended in a fiasco for the players, but instead of hiding the shame, they speak openly about it.
BULKHEAD announced the release date of Wardogs on August 11, 2026. The game will launch in Early Access on September 10, costing €39.99. Along with the announcement, the developers shared a video on YouTube, in which they list 10 reasons against buying Wardogs. However, this did not stop the shooter from becoming a bestseller on Steam.
When I watched the video with the 10 reasons against buying Wardogs, one reason stood out to me:
“We are the developers of Battalion 1944”
Battalion 1944 was a game developed by BULKHEAD. It was a competitive 5v5 shooter set in World War II, financed in 2016 through a Kickstarter campaign by interested players. However, the Early Access release in 2018 was plagued by various problems, including hit detection issues, various bugs, and server problems. Players also criticized that new content was coming too slowly. The overall situation then affected the player numbers, and as more time passed, there was primarily one thing from BULKHEAD: silence.
The studio was subsequently heavily criticized for rarely providing new information to its Kickstarter backers, especially regarding the promised console versions that were part of the Kickstarter campaign but never materialized. Seven years after the successful Kickstarter campaign, BULKHEAD announced that they would refund all Kickstarter backers via PayPal if they filled out a corresponding survey within 30 days.
In the video, the developers explain what happened back then. They talk about the lack of communication and state that the situation surrounding Battalion 1944 is the reason why they are so cautious in the Wardogs playtests and so transparent in their marketing.
“With the low player counts of only 50 to 200 daily players, our relationship with our publisher fell apart. The console version was stuck – trapped in legal disputes – and we had exhausted all our profits to keep the game alive. When we then stopped communicating, this silence was, in retrospect, far too extreme. But honestly, we just had nothing to talk about – except for the failure of Battalion and the small glimmers of hope of a passion project we were working on in our spare time. […] It is precisely these lessons and scars from Battalion that Wardogs is built upon. That is why we are so cautious in our playtests and so transparent in our marketing.”
Surprising honesty instead of fleeing from their past
My first thought was immediately: “Wow, refreshingly honest. I wouldn’t have thought they’d mention that on their own. Many would try to silence the topic.”
Of course, that doesn’t work with silencing and there have been mentions of the topic in various places such as Reddit, in the YouTube comments under trailers, or in our community. Nevertheless, this is something I did not expect in the ongoing marketing campaign of the new game.
The developers also clearly state: If you no longer trust the studio because of this, you should not buy Wardogs for now. And I agree with them. BULKHEAD should first prove that it does not repeat its mistakes and can deliver a good game this time, which also meets the promises made!
Nonetheless, this transparency gives me hope for the Early Access release, the ongoing support of the shooter, and the state of the distant 1.0 version, because:
They openly face their shame and clearly say that they communicated poorly back then.
Not everyone openly faces their mistakes
As a counterexample, I would like to briefly remind you of The Day Before, which after a attention-grabbing trailer in 2021 long stood as the great hope among survival games. However, during the development phase, more and more doubts about the game’s authenticity arose, so that on release day it was number 2 on Twitch but was torn apart by the first players on Steam.
The criticism at that time was multifaceted:
- The game is not an open-world MMO as advertised, but an extraction shooter
- The map feels empty and lifeless
- The game has hardly any survival elements as promised
- The gunplay feels boring and has poor hit feedback
- The performance is poor
The community’s conclusion: The difference between the shown gameplay trailers and the game itself was too great. The developer studio Fntastic closed a few days after the release, as The Day Before had financially failed. About 1.5 months later, the servers were also shut down, but although the finished product obviously could not meet the expectations set by the players, the developers subsequently stated that The Day Before would have been a good game. The studio explained that content creators had harmed the game with sensational titles and falsehoods. It actually had everything shown in the trailers.
I saw The Day Before at release. I probably don’t need to say more about that.
The comparison is of course not entirely fitting, as Wardogs already offered more in the Closed Alpha than The Day Before did at Early Access launch, but it still shows a significant difference in communication.
I do not want to convince anyone to spend money on Wardogs or to trust the developers now. I just want to express my respect, hoping that other developers take a lesson from this transparent communication.
In July 2026, the developers of Wardogs decided for the first time to present their shooter on Twitch in a livestream. For the grand reveal of the game, they came up with something special and planned to give themselves electric shocks. It ended with a Twitch ban before the electric shocks could take place: Developers show their shooter for the first time on Twitch, plan to give themselves electric shocks, get banned before it really starts
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