WARDOGS Season 3: 12 November start, Sabatulo map and Limited Mode

On 6 November 2026 BULKHEAD published a dev vlog called "Road to Season 03". Season 3 starts on 12 November. The studio admits it went too far with Season 2, shows Sabatulo, a new urban map, and announces three-month seasons, multi-track unlocks and a Limited Mode. The second half is about cheating: one ban wave has removed 185,000 accounts. All figures below are the studio's own.

What went wrong in Season 2#

According to BULKHEAD, the team tried to answer negative reviews with action rather than words. The Season 2 patch notes were well received on paper, but once the season went live the mood turned quickly. The season did not feel like a wipe, and players left negative reviews based on how fast others were levelling.

The studio says this removed the journey that made Season 1 satisfying for many players: "We were too aggressive with the changes, and that's on us." From now on it promises no "social experiments" and no quick fixes for whoever is loudest that week. The priority for Season 3 is stability and consistency.

The team also says it expected player numbers to drop after launch and now accepts that this is happening.

Sabatulo, the new map#

Season 3 adds Sabatulo, a map built for urban warfare and close-quarters combat. The footage shows Soviet-style apartment blocks with narrow alleys, a sports hall with an empty pool and stands, courtyards with playgrounds and a hospital with an "Emergency" entrance. BULKHEAD admits it cannot recreate the Season 1 launch, when every player was learning the game together. But with a fresh season, slightly longer early and mid-game progression and a map that everyone learns at the same time, it calls Season 3 the best chance this year to get that feeling back.

Aerial view of the Sabatulo map with apartment blocks and a hospital — Sabatulo from above. © BULKHEAD

Narrow alley between apartment blocks on Sabatulo — Apartment blocks and alleys. © BULKHEAD

Sports hall with an empty pool and stands on Sabatulo — A sports hall with an empty pool. © BULKHEAD

Courtyard between apartment buildings on Sabatulo — Courtyards between the blocks. © BULKHEAD

Hospital building with an Emergency entrance on Sabatulo — The hospital. © BULKHEAD

Our take: the hospital matches Saburtulo, the unreleased map we found in the Season 2 files (our earlier article), which has hot zones named Hospital, Bazaar, River and Hillside. In the HotZone podcast BULKHEAD described a new map with interiors, several floors and a hospital. The official name is Sabatulo.

Three-month seasons and the meta game#

Seasons now last three months. Early and mid-game progression gets slightly longer, closer to the Season 1 pace. BULKHEAD says this gives players more time to reach their goals before the next wipe and gives the team time to finish content properly.

The studio says it is well aware of the shortcomings of the current progression system. The fix is the meta game, an entirely new progression system planned for 2027. The vlog showed an early design of an Infantry skill tree, marked "subject to change": skill points earned with XP, with nodes such as assault rifle vertical recoil reduction, SMG reload speed and faster tactical sprint recovery.

Early design of the Infantry skill tree in the WARDOGS meta game — Early design of the meta game skill tree. BULKHEAD marks it as subject to change. © BULKHEAD

Season 3 is not meant to fix everything. The studio describes it as the foundation for the larger meta game updates through 2027. We went through the meta game screens frame by frame in a separate article.

Multi-track unlocks#

Until now each item sat on one progression track. If the ammo, armour or backpack you wanted was late on the Wardog track, you had to level roles you do not enjoy. In Season 3 an item that suits several roles appears on each of those tracks.

Diagram of the same items on the Wardog track and the Assault track — The same items on both the Wardog track and the Assault track. © BULKHEAD

BULKHEAD's example: a pilot who only flies the minigun Little Bird (AH-6M [Miniguns]) and wants .308 armour-piercing rounds. Right now they unlock at 140. In Season 3 the pilot will be able to unlock them on the Pilot track: the example card in the vlog shows Pilot level 40, for the same $75,000.

Two cards: .308 armour-piercing rounds on the Wardog track at level 140 and on the Pilot track at level 40 — The same rounds on two tracks: Wardog level 140 or Pilot level 40, $75,000 either way. © BULKHEAD

Limited Mode#

BULKHEAD says its long-term answer to the gap between high and low ranks comes with the meta game next year. For Season 3 it adds a separate Limited Mode with less power creep, so that the early and mid-game experience stays playable all season long:

Weapons and ammo: FMJ only. The slide lists no M4, no AMR .50, no MGL 40 and no hollow point rounds.
Gear: Level 2 Armor is the maximum. The slide lists no Tier 4 helmet, no Tier 4 armour and no Tier 3 helmet.
Vehicles: no Havoc, no Kodiak with the M249 and no Flakpanzer Gepard.

Limited Mode slide listing the weapons, gear and vehicles that are not allowed — The Limited Mode slide. The full list is still to be confirmed. © BULKHEAD

Cash and XP earned in Limited Mode can be spent in the default mode, and the other way round. The full list of restricted items has not been finalised. If players like the mode, it will stay in future seasons, and BULKHEAD asks for feedback on the idea. In the podcast the team called these servers "primitive".

Boosting servers wiped and banned#

BULKHEAD says it has been collecting data on exploits, real-money trading and gold farmers since Season 1. The vlog shows developers joining a boosting server where players were farming cash and XP. They wiped the players' cash, reset their XP to level 0, turned on rain, forced the match to end and banned everyone.

According to the studio, every player on those servers is permanently banned, including those who bought VIP slots. They have lost the right to host servers, and their copies of the game can no longer be refunded: BULKHEAD says that money goes back into development. BULKHEAD says it can now see the whole network: who connected, who took part and who is friends with them.

185,000 cheaters banned#

The anti-cheat team, which has been at work since pre-alpha, analysed 187 million hours of gameplay with the help of machine learning and AI. The studio planned to turn on the extra anti-cheat layers well into next year, but with nearly 4 million unique players since launch it switched them on now. The ban wave went out as the vlog was published: 185,000 accounts.

According to BULKHEAD, 4.89% of players worldwide used external modification software. Any program that interacts with WARDOGS in ways the game does not officially support counts as cheating, including aim or recoil aids and fire-rate manipulation. The studio says it let cheaters keep refining their tools on purpose, so it could train its models and build solid cases against them.

Region	Share of copies flagged	Share of all known cheaters	Remaining after the wave
Europe	5.70%	32.75%	0.10%
Asia	5.24%	32.08%	0.10%
North America	3.21%	22.52%	0.00%
South America	8.45%	6.66%	0.00%
Oceania	6.93%	4.83%	0.00%
Africa	12.05%	1.17%	0.00%

World map with the share of copies flagged for cheating in each region — Share of copies flagged for cheating in each region. © BULKHEAD

World map with the regional share of all known cheaters — Where all known cheaters are. © BULKHEAD

World map with the regional share of cheaters remaining after the ban wave — Cheaters remaining by region after the ban wave. © BULKHEAD

Africa has the highest share of flagged copies, but because it has few players it accounts for only 1.17% of all cheaters. Europe and Asia together account for almost two thirds. According to the last chart, after the wave only 0.10% of all known cheaters remain in Europe and 0.10% in Asia, and 0.00% in every other region. By that chart, almost every known cheater was caught in this wave.

The studio is clear that cheaters will not disappear. The cycle stays the same: they cheat, players report them, they are flagged and banned in waves. A trust score that gives players more control is planned for next year.

Note: BULKHEAD expects review bombing from banned players and asks everyone who plays to leave a Steam review, positive or negative. According to the studio, the game has close to 4 million players but only about 150,000 reviews.