Wardogs Season 3: November 12 start, Sabatulo map and wipe

A month ago Bulkhead called part of its Season 2 plan "a social experiment." The Season 3 announcement on Steam opens with a correction: "No social experiments. No reactivity." Season 2 arrived on October 15 and will have lasted four weeks; the next one is meant to run three months.

When does Wardogs Season 3 start?

Wardogs Season 3 starts on Thursday, November 12, 2026, according to Bulkhead's November 6 post on the game's Steam page, which says the full Season 03 Patch Notes Preview arrives "early next week." Wardogs has been in Steam Early Access since September 10, 2026, so the season only lands on PC for now.

Bulkhead hasn't given a start time for the Season 3 update or a maintenance window yet, and the full update details are due with the patch notes preview. Season 2's "now live" post went up at 09:59 UTC on October 15, after the servers came back online, but Bulkhead hasn't said Season 3 will follow the same schedule.

What's new in Wardogs Season 3?

The headline addition is Sabatulo, a new map that Bulkhead says "brings urban warfare and close-quarters combat to WARDOGS." Bulkhead and Team17's announcement, carried in full by Worthplaying, pitches it as "a fresh map for the entire community to learn together," and because it arrives with the season wipe, everyone learns it at the same time.

Unlocks change too. Wardogs hands out XP on separate progression tracks tied to the roles you play, and Season 3 adds multi-track unlocks: items that suit more than one role appear on more than one track, so you don't have to grind a role you dislike to get them. Insider Gaming's summary of the devlog quotes the team's version: "Play the role you want, and the unlocks will come to you." Bulkhead's 14-minute devlog video covers the map, the new unlocks, Limited Servers and the ban wave.

What is Limited Mode in Wardogs?

Limited Mode is a separate server type with restrictions on weapons, ammunition, armour and vehicles, designed "to preserve the feel of early-to-mid-game combat and reduce the advantage offered by more powerful equipment," per Bulkhead and Team17's announcement. The planned rules are FMJ-only ammunition, a Tier 2 armour cap and fewer attack vehicles, and the final list of restricted items is still being decided.

It isn't a separate economy. Cash and XP earned in Limited Mode count in the default mode and the other way round, so you can switch between them without losing progress. If you came back to Wardogs and found every fight decided by top-tier armour, this is the mode aimed at you.

Does Wardogs Season 3 wipe your progress?

Yes. Season 3 comes with a season wipe, which the announcement describes as part of recapturing "the shared discovery and sense of achievement" of the Early Access launch. Bulkhead hasn't listed exactly what the wipe resets; that should be in the patch notes preview.

Seasons also get longer. From Season 3, each one lasts three months, giving players "more time to work towards their goals before each wipe," and progression is being pulled back closer to Season 1's pace after the studio acknowledged that Season 2 "accelerated the journey too aggressively." If Season 3 runs the full three months, the next wipe would land around mid-February 2027, but Bulkhead hasn't given an end date. Bigger changes, including a new progression system, are planned for 2027 on the way to version 1.0. CEO Joe Brammer's line in the announcement: "Season 3 is about giving players a new battlefield to learn together and a progression journey worth spending time on."

Why did Wardogs ban 185,000 accounts?

The 185,000 bans are the latest anti-cheat wave, announced alongside Season 3. Bulkhead says it analysed 187 million hours of gameplay with the help of machine learning, and that nearly four million unique players since launch gave it enough data to switch on further anti-cheat layers earlier than planned. Exploiters, real-money traders and gold-farming networks have been permanently banned and have lost server-hosting privileges.

More is planned for 2027, including a player trust score. Insider Gaming reports that the devlog also showed where in the world most of the banned cheaters come from, and that Bulkhead asked players for honest reviews, critical ones included.

Is Wardogs on PS5 and Xbox, and how many people play it?

Not yet. Wardogs is PC-only in Early Access; the launch trailer's description says it's "Coming to consoles in 2028," and both the PlayStation Store and the Xbox Store already list it. Online play on console will need PS Plus or a Game Pass Essential, Premium or Ultimate subscription, per those listings. It isn't free to play: Steam sells it for $39.99, or $49.99 for the Supporter Edition (the game plus the Supporter Pack DLC), and the developers' Early Access notes say a price increase may come closer to full release, which they expect after "around 1 to 2 years" in Early Access.

Plenty of people still play. SteamCharts showed 52,975 players online on the morning of November 8 (UTC), a 24-hour peak of 96,708 and an all-time peak of 402,686 in September. The 30-day average of 119,151 is about 47% below September's 223,917. Bulkhead said in September that Wardogs had sold 3 million copies in just over two weeks.

On PC, the install size is 50 GB and Steam lists Windows only, with no Mac or Linux version. Bulkhead's minimum spec targets 1080p at 60fps on low settings with upscaling.

What we don't know yet

• The exact Season 3 start time and how long maintenance will take.
• What the wipe resets, and whether anything carries over.
• The final list of items restricted in Limited Mode.
• Exact console release dates, and whether console players will share servers with PC; the Xbox listing carries Microsoft's "Xbox cross-platform multiplayer" tag, but Bulkhead hasn't explained how that will work.

Sources

• Steam: Road to Season 3
• Bulkhead: Season 03 devlog
• Worthplaying: Season 3 announcement
• Steam: Wardogs store page
• SteamCharts: Wardogs players