It’s been one week since Wardogs launched in early access and only three days since the 100-person firefight reached its peak number of players on Steam, but that figure has already dropped by over 100,000 as of writing. That’s to be expected for any new game as its shininess dulls and some people realize they’d rather play Nintendogs – all of which developer Bulkhead is cool with. At the same time, CEO Joe Brammer wouldn’t mind some advice on how to slow some of that decline.
He writes on Twitter, “We’re entering the first phase of @WARDOGS perfectly acceptable decline where people start to find issues with the balancing, or just disagree with design decisions.” Wardogs hit a peak of 428,666 players on Steam, and it’s currently sitting at a still wildly impressive 292,471 concurrent players, according to SteamDB.
“So, let’s start the next phase of development…” Brammer says before patronizing fans with a reminder that they should, “Remember, we’re in charge here, we’re the ones with the vision,” referring to Bulkhead.
“However, you have a voice,” he continues politely. “Season 2 is going to bring lots of new content and changes. But…What is the biggest ISSUE you are seeing right now that you would change mid-season? Let me know your thoughts.”
I find it notable that Brammer is tentatively asking players for advice when, in the past, collecting as much player feedback as possible was the whole point for developers when launching a game in early access; Pocketpair publishing lead John “Bucky” Buckley recently told GamesRadar+ that he worries, “The culture has changed and early access, essentially, has lost its meaning. People just buy an early access game like they buy a normal game and treat it like that’s the game.” Perhaps the same is true for some developers – especially now that games like Palworld, TCG Card Shop Simulator, Hades 2, and so many more found huge success on Steam as in-progress early access titles.
In any case, Wardogs players are eager to share some of their best ideas with Bulkhead.
“Maybe add a dildo to put on the vehicle dashboards,” suggests one fan.
“Change blue to yellow,” John Buckley adds helpfully.
Well. It’s a good thing Bulkhead is the one with “the vision.”