Wardogs: Over a Million Sales on Day One – Then the Servers Go Down

The new milsim shooter Wardogs from developer studio Bulkhead is one of the year's biggest surprise hits. On launch day, the game sold over one million copies and reached a peak of more than 300,000 concurrent players on Steam. However, this success came at a cost: the servers couldn't withstand the onslaught.

How Many Players Did Wardogs Reach on Launch Day?

Wardogs is a 100-player King-of-the-Hill shooter that mixes elements from Battlefield, Squad, Counter-Strike, and extraction shooters. This exact blend seems to have struck a chord: According to official figures, the game surpassed the one million copies sold mark on its first day and attracted over 300,000 concurrent players on Steam – a figure that even established AAA shooters can't always match on their launch day.

Why Did Wardogs Servers Crash on Launch Day?

So many concurrent players put any infrastructure to the test: Shortly after the rush, the Wardogs servers went down, with numerous players ending up in queues or not being able to join a match at all. Nevertheless, Wardogs remained at the top of the Steam bestsellers that day – a sign that the community stuck with it despite the issues. Bulkhead has not yet released an official statement regarding specific improvements to server capacity; however, it's common for virtually every multiplayer launch of this magnitude that additional server capacities are added in the first few days.

For those who missed the launch background: We had already summarized all release times at a glance for you in advance.

Is Wardogs Also Coming to Xbox and PS5?

Currently, Wardogs is exclusively available on PC via Steam. However, Bulkhead has already confirmed that console versions for Xbox and PS5 are planned – but a specific release date has not yet been announced. Given the current server issues, it wouldn't be surprising if the studio first focuses on the stability of the PC version before taking the next big step.

The success of Wardogs fits into a trend of recent years: Tactical multiplayer shooters with high skill demands and real consequences in combat are currently attracting noticeably more players than pure arcade shooters. Whether Wardogs can maintain this momentum remains to be seen once the initial hype dies down and the servers run reliably.