WARDOGS Season 3 patch notes: Sabatulo, Limited Mode & weapon balance

BULKHEAD published the full Season 3 patch notes on Steam on 11 November 2026. Below is the complete list of changes, grouped by topic with tables for the numbers, links to every item in our database, and our breakdown of what the patch does to the weapon, vehicle and progression meta. Season 3 is now live and datamined from the new client: every raw stat change is on What changed, and the Weapon tier list and Ballistics run on Season 3 data.

When: Season 3 goes live on 12 November 2026. Official servers are down for scheduled maintenance from 13:00 to 15:00 UTC (roughly 2 hours), followed by a Steam update.

Season 3 trailer#

Key changes at a glance#

• New city map, Sabatulo: tight streets, destructible apartment blocks, a central hospital, indoor swimming pool, power station and river embankment.
• Limited Mode: early-to-mid-season sandbox with no Hollow Point or Armor Piercing ammo, no Level 3 or Level 4 Armor, no attack vehicles, and no Vanguard CIWS, Stingray, MG Nest, Drill Rig or AT Mines. Cash and XP carry over to all modes.
• Three-month seasons, slower progression and multi-track unlocks: higher XP per level, weekly XP catch-up and vendor discounts per role for lower-level players, shared gear across every role track, and tanks pushed back to 35-50 and 200.
• Weapon & gear shake-up: Infrared Range Finder and Wager Vendor removed for redesign; assault rifle and LMG torso damage buffed (+13% upper, +3% mid/lower); TCX-SPR recoil cut; DMRs buffed across unarmored and armored targets; Compound Bow arrow speed +50%; reworked Molotov Cocktail, Basic Parachute, Sport Parachute and Halligan Bar.
• Vehicle pass: higher reverse speeds on wheeled vehicles, +50% to +78% infantry damage on mounted miniguns, 70mm wobbling rockets on AH-6R [Rockets], stronger Littlebird cockpit protection, cleaned first-person windows, lower prices on four armed vehicles, and lower safe drop heights for crates and pallets.
• Fair play, servers & Early Access: NVIDIA Inspector and .ini "potato shadow" tweaks blocked and made bannable, official server ping cap raised to 250, Asian DDoS infrastructure fixes, Movember charity DLC, 9 Twitch Drops tiers, and a $5 Early Access price increase set for 28 January 2027 (existing owners pay nothing extra).

Our take: how Season 3 shifts the meta#

Before getting into every line of the patch notes, five changes stand out when we run BULKHEAD's numbers against our Season 2 weapon and vehicle data:

1. The +13% upper-torso buff drops shots-to-kill by 1 on almost every AR and LMG, and puts M4 right next to TCX-SPR. In our Season 2 data, BULKHEAD had cut the upper-chest multiplier on assault rifles (1.10 → 0.9735) and LMGs (1.155 → 0.9735). Multiplying 0.9735 by +13% lands straight back on 1.10. Assuming base calibre and armor reduction stay at Season 2 values (we will verify against the Season 3 client files after 15:00 UTC), upper-chest FMJ shots-to-kill at 50 m shift across the board:

Notice the quirk on the TCX-SPR: against L2 armor its upper-chest hit rises from 17.48 to 19.75 damage (5 × 19.75 = 98.75 HP), so it stays a 6-shot kill while the 800-rpm M4 drops from 7 shots to 6 and matches its TTK with much faster bullet velocity (910 vs 700 m/s). That explains why BULKHEAD simultaneously buffed the TCX-SPR's vertical and horizontal recoil and fixed its prone recoil bug. Meanwhile the FAL and PKM recover from Season 2's double nerf to a healthy 5-shot kill vs L2 (~430 ms on the FAL instead of 522 ms), strong again without bringing back Season 1's 245 ms two-gun meta.

2. DMRs stop being dead weight, and the M14 is the gun to watch. Season 2 buried BMR-308, SVD and SKS in C-tier. Cutting 1 to 2 body shots across every armor tier and restoring 2-shot kills through Level 3 Helmets makes Recon marksmen lethal on Sabatulo's long street sightlines, and the M14 already had the fastest paper TTK at 100 m before this buff.

3. Removing the Infrared Range Finder changes Sabatulo before a single match is played. In an urban map full of apartment windows, balconies and rubble, thermal-style spotting would have turned every street crossing into a turkey shoot. Pulling the Infrared Range Finder out of the vendor, alongside blocking NVIDIA Inspector smoke/grass stripping and .ini shadow abuse: means concealment, smoke grenades and actual line-of-sight checks matter again.

4. Littlebirds win big in Week 1, so Support's Level 8 Verba swap is critical. Tanks move far deeper into the grind (35-50), while AH-6M [Miniguns] gets a cheaper $10,480 price tag, +50% to +78% minigun damage against infantry, tougher cockpit protection, clean rain glass and a wider overhead blind spot (65° → 60°) on enemy Vanguard CIWS. Moving the 9K333 Verba earlier to 8 (swapped with Large Hammer moving to 14) is the main check keeping early helicopters honest.

5. Parachutes and Molotovs are tuned specifically for vertical city fights. Turning the Basic Parachute into a high-altitude bailout chute that will not open within ~20 m of the ground stops players from diving off every roof for $500, turning the $2,250 Sport Parachute into a real loadout choice on Sabatulo. And a cheaper Molotov Cocktail at 8 ($12.5k) that forces burning players to drop their held item is nasty inside stairwells and hospital corridors.

New map, Limited Mode & progression#

New Map: Sabatulo#

Sabatulo is WARDOGS' first city map, built around narrow streets, tall apartment blocks and heavy building destruction, with landmarks including a central hospital (Sabatulo Clinic), an indoor swimming pool (Blue Ridge), a power station and the river embankment. Combat mixes room-to-room clearing, street firefights and rooftop sightlines over the city.

New Game Mode: Limited Mode#

Vendor purchases in Limited Mode are capped to early- and mid-season gear, giving players a lower-power sandbox all season long and an easier on-ramp for anyone joining late. All cash and progression earned in Limited Mode carry over to standard servers (and the other way round).

Confirmed restrictions in the patch notes:

• No Hollow Point (HP) or Armor Piercing (AP) ammunition.
• No Level 3 Armor or Level 4 Armor.
• No attack vehicles.
• No Vanguard CIWS, Stingray, MG Nest or Drill Rig.
• No AT Mines.

Our take: compared to the early slide in the Road to Season 03 devlog, the final patch notes go broader on vehicles and emplacements: instead of naming three specific vehicles, Limited Mode strips out all attack vehicles, heavy defensive emplacements, Drill Rigs and anti-tank mines, turning it into a pure infantry-and-transports fight capped at Level 2 Armor and FMJ rounds.

Multi-Track Unlocks#

Shared items now unlock across multiple role tracks so you can earn essentials by playing your preferred role rather than dipping into every role just to farm WARDOG career levels. BULKHEAD describes this as a bridge until next year's Intel-based progression rework:

• Armor, backpacks, tactical vests and parachutes can now be unlocked on every role track.
• Ammunition types are spread across the role tracks where the weapons firing them unlock (and moved later on the WARDOG track).
• Each role still reaches its signature shared gear earlier than other roles:
  • Assault unlocks armor earlier than any other role.
  • Medic unlocks tactical vests earlier than any other role.
  • Support unlocks backpacks earlier than any other role.
  • Recon unlocks AP ammo earlier than any other role.

Catch-Up Mechanic, Extended Vendor Discounts & 3-Month Seasons#

• Weekly catch-up: as the season progresses, an XP catch-up bonus and an extended vendor discount ramp up week by week per role for lower-level players (BULKHEAD jokes this is for anyone taking a break for GTA VI and coming back later), helping latecomers reach mid-game gear and counters to endgame kits.
• Three-month cadence & slower launch pace: seasons now run roughly 3 months, and XP per level has been raised back toward Season 1 pacing. BULKHEAD notes that coordinated min-maxers will still reach high-tier items and vehicles on the opening weekend, advising players to lean on early counters, squad sharing, or New Player and Limited servers.

Movember Mustache DLC & Gold Market camos#

Movember Tactical 'Stache Charity DLC#

Throughout November, BULKHEAD is partnering with Movember for men's health (supporting prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention programmes), donating 100% of profits from the Tactical 'Stache DLC:

• Movember 2026 Tactical 'Stache: an exclusive in-game mustache cosmetic that visibly grows the more hours you play during November (equippable during November only).
• Movember 2026 Scoreboard Badge: a permanent scoreboard badge you can equip all year round.

Season 3 Gold Market Camos#

Five new skins arrive in the Gold Market for Season 3, while Season 2's Black & Gold Littlebird stays on sale for two extra weeks to make up for Season 2's shortened run:

• Defibrillator: Black & Gold (Limited Time)
• MAAWS: Two-Tone Desert
• Compound Bow: Digital Wood
• M1911: Chocolate Chip
• FAL: Chocolate Chip

Weapons & equipment#

Infrared Range Finder Removed#

• Infrared Range Finder removed from the vendor. Following Episode 1 of The HotZone, BULKHEAD says Season 2's 80-second battery cap did not curb its near-universal pick rate or strength, so the item is pulled completely until a redesign is ready.

Assault Rifles, LMGs, TCX-SPR & DMRs#

• Assault Rifle & LMG bone damage: assault rifle torso damage returns to Season 1 values, and LMG torso damage now matches assault rifles against both unarmored and armored targets (armor damage reduction percentages are unchanged):

• TCX-SPR handling: reduced vertical full-auto climb and less side-to-side spray drift, plus a bug fix stopping it from using standing recoil while prone.
• DMR damage buffs (placed between Season 1 and Season 2 values after Season 2 stacked damage cuts with recoil changes):
  • Unarmored body: every DMR now kills in 2 shots (was 3).
  • Armored body: SVD, BMR-308 and M14 require 1 to 2 fewer body shots at every armor level; SKS requires 1 fewer shot against Level 2 and Level 4 Armor.
  • Head: every DMR kills an unhelmeted target in 1 headshot (was 2); SVD, BMR-308 and M14 kill through a Level 3 Helmet in 2 headshots (was 3).
  • Neck: higher damage, still 2 shots to kill. Arms and legs: unchanged.

Compound Bow, Molotov, Halligan Bar & Item Weights#

• Compound Bow: arrow speed increased by +50%, cutting travel time and target lead.
• Molotov Cocktail: catching fire in Molotov flames now sets players ablaze, dealing burn damage and forcing them to drop their held item; unlock cost halved from $25,000 → $12,500 (and moved earlier to 8); reduced damage against armored vehicles and heavy armor.
• Halligan Bar: can now pry open enemy supply crates, dropping one random item onto the ground.
• Corrected item weights:

Parachute Rework#

• Helicopter altimeter: passengers now see height above ground right above the minimap (matching the effective height listed on parachute tooltips).
• Enemy FOB drop reward: new reward for parachuting into an enemy FOB.

Vehicles#

Handling & Reverse Speeds#

• Wheeled vehicles now roll downhill when off the throttle.
• Improved rear-wheel traction on URAL and Humvee.
• URAL, Kodiak, Humvee, Dune Buggy and Wolf-110 lose some grip when pushed past normal top speed (such as downhill), and the URAL can no longer exceed its forward top speed by rolling backwards downhill.
• Faster reverse speeds across wheeled vehicles:

Mounted Miniguns, Helicopter Rockets, Littlebird Cockpits & Windows#

• Vehicle-mounted miniguns vs infantry (placed between Season 1 and Season 2 values):

• AH-6R [Rockets]: rocket pods now fire dedicated 70mm rockets with flight thrust instability and wobble instead of sharing the Havoc's 122mm rockets; direct damage vs vehicles and infantry is unchanged, making long-range infantry sniping less accurate while keeping anti-vehicle and anti-FOB firepower intact.
• Littlebird cockpit protection: MH-6, AH-6R and AH-6M pilot and co-pilot ballistic protection raised to sit between Season 1 and Season 2 levels.
• First-person window cleaning: fixed the smeared vehicle window material introduced by Season 2's rain shader across all vehicles.

Vanguard CIWS, Tanks, Destruction, Crates & Vehicle Prices#

• Vanguard CIWS / 20x102mm rounds: each round now damages a vehicle section once instead of hitting multiple times while passing through; per-hit damage is retuned so Havoc and Z20 Lakota take roughly the same total damage as Season 2 while Littlebirds take slightly less. Maximum elevation angle reduced 65° → 60°, widening the overhead blind spot.
• Tanks & environment destruction: tanks are much more resistant to hand grenades (a single grenade no longer wrecks a tank engine); box hedges can be flattened by vehicles (except the Bobcat), and stone walls can be destroyed by tanks and artillery.
• Supply crates & pallets: supply crates can no longer be deployed inside safe zones (matching pallets), and safe drop heights (valid up to ~80 km/h airspeed; shown on tooltips) are reduced:

• Vehicle vendor price cuts:

Progression, economy & Wager Vendor removal#

XP Per Level & Unlock Level Shifts#

XP required per level is higher across the board, bringing launch progression back near Season 1 speeds. Alongside multi-track unlocks and moving ammo types later on the WARDOG track, the following role unlocks moved:

Losing Faction Discount, Rewards & Wager Vendor#

• Losing faction vendor discount: now scales off the point gap to the first-place faction rather than the faction one place ahead, giving third place stronger buying power to get back into the match.
• Buildable weapon emplacement destruction cash doubled: L81 Mortar, Talon 9K-SAM, MG Nest and Stingray $650 → $1,300; Vanguard CIWS $1,200 → $2,400.
• Vehicle combat & logistics rewards: re-added air vehicle kill-streak rewards against enemy infantry; destroying an enemy vehicle with your own vehicle within 1,000 m of a control zone now pays the full control zone bonus; reduced rewards for pallets deployed outside a friendly FOB and for cheap supply crates (scaled to the value of items inside); new kickback for depositing fuel into a FOB that powers an active drill; new reward for parachuting into an enemy FOB.
• Spotted target killed reward cuts:

• Wager Vendor removed: pre-release testing in Season 2 exposed too many exploit paths in the original design, and a nerfed version lost its high-stakes appeal, so the vendor goes back into development.

Servers, Steam features, UI, audio & controller#

Seeding, Community Servers, 250 Ping Cap & Asian DDoS Fixes#

• Server seeding & team switching: unarmed vehicles now spawn for free during seeding and clear when the match starts; the obscured-Tac-Map team-switch penalty now only triggers if you had already connected during the current match.
• Community servers: playing on community servers now grants a small cash bonus, admins can configure a custom "Server Rules" popup on join, and servers can be favorited from both the browser and the in-match pause menu.
• Official ping cap raised to 250: following the 185,000-account ban wave and regional data review, official servers now allow up to 250 ms ping across all regions so international friend groups can squad up (community admins still set their own limits).
• Asian DDoS mitigations: BULKHEAD says it has identified the attack vector hitting Official and Community servers in Asia, is deploying infrastructure mitigations for Season 3 launch, and is taking action against accounts behind the attacks.

Steam Achievements, Replay Timeline, UI, Audio & Controller#

• Steam Achievements: added He's Behind You, Car Jacker and Slot Machine.
• Steam Replay Timeline Events: Steam Game Recording timelines now mark kills, revives and giving up with custom icons.

• Front end, browser & HUD: Season 3 main menu video; new Player category in Collection for emotes, bobbleheads and badges with collapsible filters; redesigned Deployment Select separating Official and Community per mode plus a Limited filter; squad invites and join requests now queue up to 5 each; reachable repair points on attack Littlebirds; fixes for stuck collapsed chat, "Rebuy Last Loadout" failing with locked magazines, refund loadout totals, spawn vehicle screen and kick/ban popup text.
• Audio: new armor and helmet hitmarker sounds for Hollow Point rounds; reliable armor/helmet break audio; dedicated spotting voice lines for tanks, anti-air vehicles, Wolf-110, MG Nests and supply crates plus a spot-refresh sound; voice lines when burning or caught in barbed wire; empty-mag weapon inspect audio; 2D rain ambience per interior/space rather than per biome.
• Controller: A changes seat, A (Hold) jumps straight to the driver's seat, and Handbrake / Pilot Fire moves to B; X (Hold) adds Reload Discard (fast mag-drop reload); world interactions now take a single press (vehicle interactions stay hold); updated downed bindings (A Call for Help, B Damage Log, X Give Up, Y Bribe); shorter hold for Tac-Map and Pause, plus fixes for cursor drift, downed minimap zoom, Stingray ammo purchases and hold-based IED detonation.

Performance, fair-play rules, price increase & Twitch Drops#

Performance, NVIDIA Inspector Bans & Graphics Settings#

• Optimisations & stability: faster rendering of ground clutter (ivy, leaves, rubble, litter) and fewer shadow updates; better rain performance and fixes for window rain flicker or rain stopping after using a vendor; loading screen held until match data arrives; server crash fixes for invalid lock-on targets and tire/engine damage; fixed first-launch benchmark running twice.
• NVIDIA Inspector & third-party visual tweaks are now bannable: using NVIDIA Inspector or similar external tools to strip smoke or grass, alter geometry or textures, or abuse LOD bias now blocks game launch with a warning popup; bypassing that block is a bannable offense.
• .ini "potato shadow" tampering reset & bannable: the ultra-low "potato" shadow option is only shown in menus when boot hardware detection confirms a true minimum-spec PC. Season 3 automatically resets .ini edits to that setting on boot, and spoofing hardware specs to force it on faster PCs is bannable.
• Global Illumination: now only visible and toggleable on the Overkill preset (starts On there; Off and hidden on all lower presets).

Early Access Price Increase (+$5 on 28 January 2027)#

BULKHEAD announced its first planned Early Access price step: WARDOGS will rise by $5 at the end of Season 3 on 28 January 2027, alongside a New Year showcase of content coming in the first half of 2027. A second increase is planned around the one-year Early Access anniversary in September 2027. Anyone who already owns WARDOGS pays nothing extra.

Season 3 Twitch Drops#

Twitch Drops are live for Season 3 after linking your account at account.wardogs.com. Claimed drops go to your front-end Vault and can then be redeemed at in-match vendors:

Bug fixes#

General & Buildable Fixes#

• Fixed terrain gaps, distant LODs, helicopter glass, supply crate colors and missing ceilings on lowest graphics settings.
• Fixed distant players peeking over low walls from high ground sometimes rendering as hidden behind cover.
• Fixed mode-specific vendor restrictions carrying into the next match on map rotation, and community server unbans or reserved-slot removals reverting when saving server settings.
• Death bags and downed bodies are no longer treated as team-kill objects that block teammate looting; death bags now show the owner's name, and downed players who disconnect drop their loot bag.
• Fixed floating buildable pieces after supports break, unrepairable MG Nests, items snapping onto MG Nests, and missing or frozen build prompts.

Weapon & Vehicle Fixes#

• Fixed bullet penetration and collision on church railings, hedges, car windows and prop vehicle glass; fixed AK74 drum magazine inspect animation and TCX-SPR prone recoil.
• Fixed grenade launchers breaking tank tracks in 1 hit and disabling rear engines in 3 hits: they now require 3 hits on tracks and 5–6 hits on engines, matching hand grenades.
• Fixed bullets killing the T-72B3 driver through the hull, plus T-72B3 clipping and animations.
• Fixed mounted weapon hits sometimes counting as (and dealing the damage of) the player's held firearm; fixed mounted reload UI looping, gunners being unable to buy vehicle ammo at garages, passengers switching fire modes near garages, Shooting Range vehicle locks, flat-ground vehicle spawn failures, Wolf-110 death poses, crash kills crediting the downed driver instead of the attacker, vehicle inventory stacking into existing stacks first, and MH-6 hull repairs on gun/rocket variants.

Map Fixes#

• All maps: fixed building collision, clipping, gaps, lighting, floating doors on destroyed apartment/office walls, residential house destruction, players falling through terrain or turning invisible at match start, and removed Lonestar propaganda posters from spawns.
• Bakurani: rain now falls through broken glass on the factory roof.
• Zestafona: fixed mortars firing through the roof of the green brick warehouse and adjusted abandoned tractor collision.
• Ozeti: fixed blocked vehicle spawns and stopped vehicles from driving through the Dinamo Ozeti stadium's front retaining wall and pillars.

Source#

• WARDOGS | Season 03 Patch Notes, BULKHEAD on Steam, 11 November 2026.
• WARDOGS Season 03 trailer and Movember Tactical 'Stache trailer on YouTube.