WARDOGS Season 2 has just launched, bringing quite a few additions to the game, including new weapons, vehicles, equipment, and some fairly significant balancing adjustments. I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing since the update came out, and while it’s still very early, the developers seem to be taking an interesting approach to one of the biggest issues I had with Season 1.
In my previous article, I talked about how rewarding progression was, but also how much less enjoyable the game became toward the end of the season. High-level armor, better weapons, and thermal equipment made life considerably harder for anyone who hadn’t unlocked the same gear.
Season 2 seems to be addressing that problem in two ways: making progression faster and reducing the advantage of some late-game equipment.
What’s new in WARDOGS Season 2?
There’s a decent amount of new content in the update. The weapon additions include the TCX-SPR, PP-19 Bizon, Evo-3 Ultra, and M14, alongside new attachments. There are also new vehicles, including the T-72B3 tank, Flakpanzer Gepard, and Wolf-110 variants.
Rain and thunderstorms have been introduced as well, along with additional equipment and construction options such as Molotovs, machine-gun nests, and shelters.
These are all nice, although the more important adjustments are probably the ones affecting how the game actually plays. Weapon damage, recoil, armor, and progression have all been reworked to some extent, and some of the differences are already quite noticeable.
Progression is considerably faster
One of the biggest changes in Season 2 is the reduced XP requirements across progression. The developers had already announced that players would need less XP to reach new levels and unlock equipment, and that certainly seems to be the case.
Within the first 24 hours, I was already encountering players around levels 30 to 50, and it didn’t take long before T-72 tanks started appearing on the battlefield either. Obviously, some people have been playing almost nonstop since the wipe, but even so, leveling up feels much quicker than it did before.
I generally support faster progression. At the same time, I did enjoy how infantry-focused the first week or so of Season 1 was, with large groups fighting over particular areas of the map and relatively few high-level snipers or vehicles getting involved. Those battles had a different feel to them, and with how quickly people are leveling up now, I think we’ll be seeing less of that.
Whether that’s necessarily a bad thing depends on what you enjoy about WARDOGS. Personally, I like that type of infantry combat, but I can also understand why someone would want access to tanks, helicopters, and better equipment sooner.
My bigger concern is whether faster progression will simply bring some of the late-season balancing problems forward. The weapon and armor adjustments might prevent that, but we could also end up with tanks, helicopters, and other late-game equipment becoming a much bigger factor in matches considerably earlier than before.
Weapon balancing might be the bigger improvement
In Season 1, weapons like the FAL and BMR-308 were considerably better than most of the earlier unlocks, particularly when combined with high-level armor and AP ammunition.
Season 2 has nerfed .308 ammunition, and the difference is quite noticeable in testing. The FAL and BMR-308 still seem like pretty good weapons, but they no longer feel like such obvious upgrades over everything else.
The M4, for example, was already a really good weapon in Season 1, even without AP ammunition, and with AP rounds it might now actually outperform a FAL using regular .308. The new TCX-SPR has also been really good in the matches I’ve played, and I’d put it alongside the M4 and FAL as one of the best assault rifles in the game right now.
Most players haven’t unlocked the .308 rifles yet, so it’s difficult to judge how much the nerfs will affect actual matches. Based on testing, though, the gap between these weapons seems smaller than it was in Season 1.
That seems like a much healthier direction for the game. Progression should reward players with better gear, but having a higher-level weapon shouldn’t automatically give someone such a substantial advantage in every firefight.
There have also been changes to higher-level armor and helmets, including adjustments to level 4 equipment, although it’s too early to say exactly how much those will affect the overall balance.
What’s interesting is how these changes fit together. Rather than keeping everyone using early-game gear for longer, the developers seem to be getting players into the later stages of progression more quickly, while making the gear itself less dominant.
Essentially, WARDOGS Season 2 might be trading a longer early game for a more balanced mid-to-late game.
What about the blue-team problem?
Another issue from Season 1 was the imbalance between the three factions.
Green had developed a reputation for being the strongest team, while blue was generally considered the weakest. That reputation was one of the reasons more competitive players gravitated toward green, making the situation progressively worse.
At the start of Season 2, the developers introduced additional XP and cash rewards for joining blue, which attracted more experienced and competitive players to the faction. The incentive was then reverted after roughly a day.
During the matches I played, blue was actually winning quite consistently, similarly to how green used to dominate in Season 1. But it’s difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from that.
If you’re deliberately encouraging more competitive players to join a particular team, it’s hard to tell whether that team is winning because the underlying balance is fair or simply because it now has better players.
There are still questions about whether certain maps, spawn positions, and even the visibility of blue uniforms put the faction at a disadvantage. And while the experiment certainly changed which players were joining blue, it didn’t seem to provide any particularly useful answers to those questions, at least from what we could observe as players.
Is Season 2 a step in the right direction?
So far, I think it is.
The new weapons and vehicles are nice additions, and there’s enough new content to make the season feel different. But for me, the most promising part in terms of the game’s longevity is the weapon balancing.
Toward the end of Season 1, the gap between early and late-game equipment was probably my biggest frustration with WARDOGS. It wasn’t just that certain weapons were stronger; the entire way people approached matches started changing as more players unlocked better weapons, thermals, and armor. By the end of the season, I was primarily using the FAL, and there were plenty of fights I’d win simply because “my gun kills a lot faster than yours.”
Faster progression makes sense, even if it means losing some of the infantry-focused fighting I enjoyed at the beginning of Season 1. Making more equipment accessible is a good thing, and if the difference between early and late-game weapons isn’t quite so extreme anymore, that could make WARDOGS more enjoyable throughout the season. The main concern is whether tanks and helicopters will start dominating matches much earlier than before.
After just one day, it’s far too early to judge the overall balance, but I like the approach the developers are taking. Rather than simply making the grind shorter, they’re also trying to address what made the later stages of Season 1 frustrating in the first place.
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