WARDOGS Patch Notes: Season 2 Update 0.2.0 Explained

Latest update

The latest WARDOGS update is Update 0.2.0, the Season 2 update. BULKHEAD posted the Season 02 patch notes on Steam on October 14, 2026, took the servers down for maintenance on October 15 between 08:00 and 09:30 UTC, and announced shortly before 10:00 UTC that Update 0.2.0 was released and servers were back online. The headline changes are four new weapons, four new vehicles, a Molotov, rain weather, big damage cuts to high-calibre rounds, a faster XP curve and a large round of price changes.

Season 2: Update 0.2.0 (October 15, 2026)

This is a summary in our own words. The official patch notes are long and list many exact level and price changes, so read the original announcement on Steam for the full detail.

New weapons, gear and attachments

• Four new weapons: TCX-SPR assault rifle (7.62x39mm), PP-19 Bizon SMG (9x19mm), Evo-3 Ultra LMG (.308 Win) and M14 marksman rifle (.308 Win), each with new attachments such as optics, muzzle devices, magazines and bipods.
• Molotov: a thrown incendiary that does impact damage, leaves burning fire, can burn destructible foliage and is weakened by rain.
• Infrared Range Finder: back, and now runs on batteries. One battery lasts around 80 seconds of active use and drains faster if you toggle it on and off quickly.
• Level 4 helmet: now muffles audio and proximity chat, narrows your field of view and fogs up while sprinting. Level 3 and Level 4 helmets resist suppression better.

New vehicles and buildables

• Vehicles: Wolf-110 light transport, Wolf-110 with a ring-mounted M2 Browning, the T-72B3 main battle tank, and the Flakpanzer Gepard anti-air vehicle.
• Buildables: an MG Nest with a manned M2 Browning, a Large Shelter, and a Wooden Step.

Rain, matchmaking and quality of life

• Rain weather preset: wet surfaces, rain audio that changes with cover, rain through destroyed roofs, and thunder that every player hears at the same moment and that can mask footsteps. Rain also affects spotting range.
• Team switching: once a team leads by more than 10 points, you cannot switch again for 15 minutes, and late joiners or switchers have an obscured map and no spawn vehicle access until they first reach the control zone.
• Team kills: the victim now chooses Forgive or Punish. Punish votes add up to kicks and escalating bans.
• Squad intent: squad leaders can show what their squad plans to do before others join.
• Rebuy Last Loadout: fills the vendor with your last loadout so you can edit it before buying.
• Server seeding: players who fill empty servers earn rewards and a vendor discount once the match starts, and there are things to do before the match begins.
• Ping limits: official servers now have region-based ping limits. Players with sustained high ping are kicked and cannot rejoin that server until the next map. The server browser gains ping tags and filters.
• Bakurani: all three team spawns moved, with new routes to the zone.
• Gold Market: eight new camos in four families. The Black & Gold AK camo is removed, and Black & Gold for the Little Bird is listed as a Season 2 exclusive.
• Wager Vendor: lets you bet your own cash on your own performance, but it is not available at launch. BULKHEAD says it opens later in Season 2 and will come and go during a season.

Faction balance experiment

BULKHEAD calls this a social experiment. For Season 2 only, Lonestar gets a cash and XP win bonus plus cash and XP multipliers for teamplay actions. Any team at least 40 points behind second place now gets 20% off at the vendor. The announcement gives no percentages for the Lonestar bonuses, and says community server hosts seen exploiting the faction bonus will be punished.

Combat balance

• High-calibre damage cut: base damage is down 25% for .308 Winchester, 20% for 7.62x54mmR, 19% for 7.62x39mm and 16% for .50 Cal. This applies to every weapon using those rounds, including vehicle weapons such as miniguns.
• Snipers keep their role through higher hit-location damage. DMRs now sit between assault rifles and snipers, and LMG body damage now matches assault rifles.
• Armour: Level 3 damage reduction drops from 55% to 50%, Level 4 from 65% to 60%.
• Suppression was rebuilt and is much stronger from small and medium calibres. Level 3 helmets cut suppression by 68%, Level 4 by 80%.
• Parachutes open more slowly, will not open below about 10 m, and opening below about 50 m at speed means fall damage. The Basic Parachute now costs $500 and the Sport Parachute $700.
• Weapon tweaks: the MP5 recoil is harder to control, the Super-45 loses more damage past 50 m, all DMRs got a recoil pass, the MGL-40 is slower and less accurate, and the Mosin gets its own 3.5x PU scope but loses access to other optics.

Building and vehicle balance

• Build costs rise for most structures and some defences get cheaper. For example, the L81 Mortar goes from 150 to 600 supplies and the Talon 9K-SAM from 1,000 to 650.
• Drill Rigs need more fuel to start and run for less time, and the Talon and Mortar restock more slowly.
• Doors and gates can no longer be breached with a hammer. The Halligan bar can breach both.
• Purchased vehicle inventories are now private to the driver and squad by default. Free team vehicles stay open to everyone.
• Many vehicle bug fixes, including tanks launching themselves from their own turret and vehicles sinking when ramming.

Progression and rewards

• Faster XP curve: reaching level 20 in a role track now takes less than half the playtime it did in Season 1. For example, level 20 needs 111,500 XP instead of 250,000.
• Unlock reshuffle: most attachments move to earlier levels, C4 and the Molotov move into the Assault track, the Medical Bag unlocks at Medic level 14, the PKM at Support level 15, and the Little Bird with miniguns now unlocks later and costs more.
• Rewards: logistics base rewards are lower but delivery streaks add bonuses, spotting pays around 30% less than in Season 1, and each vehicle variant now has its own destroy reward.
• Vendor prices: many items cost more, including the L2A6 at $22,000 and the Havoc at $28,000. Some cost less, including the AK74 at $800 and most muzzles and grips.

Controller and misc

• An Aim Assist strength slider in Settings, under Controller and then Advanced. Setting it to 0 turns Aim Assist off.
• Several controller bind changes and fixes.
• Steam Trading Cards and Point Shop items are planned within Season 2, pending Valve's approval.

What the patch notes do not cover

The Season 2 patch notes and the Season 02 Is Now Live post do not mention a reset, Gold Bars, a cash conversion rate or how long Season 2 will last. For what BULKHEAD has said about resets, see our WARDOGS wipe and Season 2 page.

Previous update: Update 0.1.2 and October 2 hotfixes

IR Goggles and CIWS Balance Hotfix (October 2, 2026)

• IR Rangefinders were disabled in the vendor until Season 02, where they would require batteries. BULKHEAD said it agreed they had become too overpowered.
• CIWS destroys the Havoc in around 6 seconds instead of 12.
• No new client download or server downtime was required.

Security and Stability Hotfix (October 2, 2026)

A hotfix at 08:00 UTC addressed minor security and stability issues affecting some players, with an expected downtime of one hour. The announcement does not list individual changes.

Update 0.1.2 (September 30, 2026)

BULKHEAD took the servers offline for about one hour at 08:00 UTC on September 30, 2026 to deliver Update 0.1.2, which it calls a minor patch.

• WD-L020 crash fixed. BULKHEAD says the crash was caused by the Windows 11 update KB5124010.
• Exploits: revive checks are fully server authoritative, a vehicle fly-through exploit was fixed, buildable destroy rewards scale with build progress, and pallets deposited outside the zone pay less.
• New Deploy screen: after you click Deploy, you choose Official, Community, Infantry Mode or Low-Level servers.
• Server browser: Advanced filters returned on the Official list, long names are no longer cut off, and you see your place in the queue after clicking Join.
• Streamer and Anonymous mode hide the server name more consistently, and gamepad works on the Deploy screen.
• Community server admins can set a daily restart time in UTC and restrict RCON access.
• Enforcement: players caught abusing cash or XP exploits, or real money trading, had cash and progression reset and risk a permanent ban without warning.

Patch 0.11

BULKHEAD announced Patch 0.11 on September 12, 2026 and delivered it during a one-hour maintenance window at 08:00 UTC on September 14. Most changes target the server browser.

• The server browser now has separate Community and Official lists.
• Unneeded filters were removed from the Official list, and Community filtering is more reliable.
• Community servers gained text search and a persistent server ID, so you can join by ID.
• A Show Empty and Show Full option was added, and server names now sort alphabetically.
• Community servers paid a 5% end-of-match cash bonus for one week.
• Various cash exploits and more GPU crashes were fixed.
• Server capacity in Asia was increased.

New rules on exploits

• Abusing cash exploits leads to a timed ban and a reset of cash and XP to zero.
• Making content that teaches others to abuse exploits is treated like advertising cheats and leads to a permanent ban.
• Joining an XP farming server for more than a few minutes leads to a permanent ban.

Launch Stability Hotfix #1

Released on September 10, 2026, this client update targeted players who could not join servers, players kicked during play and long login queues. Everyone was asked to restart and update, then admitted from the login queue in controlled batches.

Season 1 changelog

Published on September 9, 2026, the day before launch.

Progression

• Levels 10 to 20 are slower, and the XP curve flattens from level 35 onward.
• BULKHEAD expects the median player to reach about level 20 after 20 to 25 hours.
• Each season will have a different XP curve and a different item unlock order.
• The Artillery Tank moved to Career level 90, and the Heavy Tank moved to Driver level 35.

Selected price changes

These are the prices as listed in the Season 1 changelog. Season 2 changed many of them again.

Fixes and quality of life

• Fixed an exploit that let players reach an unintended spot on the church roof.
• Added report tracking, with less weight given to repeated bad-faith reports.
• Improved voice chat reliability.
• DLSS Frame Generation can now be turned off without restarting.
• Fixed several crashes, including crashes involving buildables and frame generation.