WARDOGS Role Tracks: How to Level Driver, Recon, Pilot and More

WARDOGS role tracks are separate XP ladders. BULKHEAD named all six in its 15 September launch-weekend stats: Infantry, Medic, Recon, Support, Pilot and Driver. Career, the Wardog level, is a separate ladder with its own unlocks, and “Assault” is a community name for Infantry. This update checks the guide against every BULKHEAD post up to 6 October 2026 and puts the three tracks players ask about most, Driver, Recon and Pilot, first: what feeds them, the official XP curve, the Season 1 gates, and the ban rules from Patch 0.11 and Update 0.1.2. Season 1 has been live since 10 September 2026. The season’s numbers were published in the 9 September Season 1 changelog.

WARDOGS is a squad shooter from BULKHEAD. There is no class-select screen. BULKHEAD’s February 2026 FAQ puts it plainly: roles are “totally player-defined”, and you earn XP across six progression tracks by buying specialist items for your loadout. Its 15 September launch-weekend stats name the six role tracks: Infantry, Medic, Recon, Support, Pilot and Driver. Career is the separate Wardog ladder. The Season 1 changelog sorts unlock changes under Career, Medic, Support, Driver, Pilot and Recon; it has no Infantry header. The community progression page reports role-track caps of 50 and a Career/Wardog cap of 150; these are not official cap statements. See MetaBot’s progression page. Unlocks also cost in-game cash on top of the level gate. The URAL, for example, is Driver level 3 and costs $35,000 to unlock. The Season 1 changelog lists vendor prices separately from track unlock prices. Per-life loadout purchasing rules are not stated in that document. For the cash side, see the WARDOGS progression guide to levels, cash and unlocks.

This is the section most guides overstate. BULKHEAD’s official Season 1 changelog gives the XP curve and two XP events. Killing a player with an air vehicle now pays 250 XP (down from 300), and selling a supply-crate item priced under $75 now pays 1 XP (down from 25). Neither event is tied to a track by name. The changelog also says the supply-crate curve was rescaled so low-value items “cannot be abused.”

The rule itself is BULKHEAD’s: its February 2026 FAQ says buying specialist items for your loadout earns XP across six progression tracks. Its 15 September launch-weekend stats add that role XP is based on item usage, not fixed classes. On that weekend, earned XP split Infantry 20%, Medic 20%, Recon 19%, Support 21%, Pilot 9% and Driver 11%. What the studio hasn’t published is which action with which item pays how much XP; that part is community-observed. The changelog’s layout fits that reading, since every unlock is filed under the track it belongs to. A third-party equipment guide reports XP tags on item tooltips, including Recon on binoculars and Medic on bandages; we have not checked these in the client.

What we could not establish: which item feeds which track, and per-track XP values for actions like revives or spotting. No later BULKHEAD Steam post checked through 6 October 2026 changed these XP curves or unlock levels. Update 0.1.2 (30 September) capped and scaled some exploitable rewards (vehicle fly-throughs, buildables destroyed before completion, pallets deposited into a FOB outside the zone) without publishing new XP values.

For each track: what feeds it, what BULKHEAD says about in-match XP, and the Season 1 gates the changelog names. BULKHEAD hasn’t published XP values for individual actions on any track, so the actions below are community-observed. Driver, Recon and Pilot come first because they are the tracks players search for most.

Driver

WardogsHub reports that Driver has no carryable gear and comes only from operating ground vehicles, for example moving teammates around; this is a community observation. BULKHEAD’s official changelog says Driver was “rejigged” to escalate through attack vehicles. The Driver unlocks moved by the Season 1 changelog are listed in the rewards section below; this is not a complete unlock catalogue.

Recon

WardogsHub reports that sniper and marksman rifles and the bow feed Recon progression; these are community observations. A separate report lists binoculars as Recon-tagged; the XP-triggering action and its value are not stated in the Season 1 changelog. See MetaBot’s gear-to-XP explanation for the general association. Named Season 1 gates: the 6-10x MRAD scope unlock rose from $25,000 to $40,000, and the 6-10x MOA scope from $30,000 to $45,000, per BULKHEAD’s official Season 1 changelog. The changelog gives no Recon level moves for these scopes. One Recon-relevant item changed since: BULKHEAD’s 2 October hotfix disabled IR Rangefinders in the vendor until Season 02, when they will need batteries (IR Goggles & CIWS Balance Hotfix).

Pilot

WardogsHub reports that Pilot also has no carryable gear, and transporting teammates feeds it; this is a community observation. Official Season 1 Pilot price changes: Little Bird with miniguns went from $25,000 to $50,000, Z20 Lakota from $50,000 to $35,000, and the small armoured supply crate from $5,000 to $10,000. Music Tape H left Pilot 28 and is now Driver 23.

Soporte

WardogsHub reports that building and hammers feed Support, and lists C4 and AT mines as Support-tagged; these are community observations. Per BULKHEAD’s official Season 1 changelog, the Large Hammer moved from Support 7 to Support 8 and its unlock cost rose from $25,000 to $75,000. The Medium Hammer’s unlock cost rose from $10,000 to $25,000. Building is covered in the WARDOGS FOB guide to building, supplies and defense.

Medic

WardogsHub reports that revives feed Medic, and lists bandages, the Adrenaline Pen and the Medical Bag as Medic-tagged; these are community observations. The only Medic change in the official changelog is the PP-19 50-round drum magazine, which moved from level 33 to level 29.

Infantry (Community Name: Assault)

Infantry is one of the six role tracks BULKHEAD named in its 15 September launch-weekend stats; some community sites call it Assault. Community sources report that rifles, pistols and items like the M67 frag grenade feed it, but BULKHEAD hasn’t published that mapping. The Season 1 changelog has no Infantry header, so it doesn’t say which Infantry unlocks moved. For rifle unlocks, check the Unlock tab in-game.

These are cumulative role-track XP totals, per BULKHEAD’s official Season 1 changelog. BULKHEAD also says each season will have a different XP curve with different item orders, so these are Season 1 figures. Levels below 6 didn’t change.

Level 20 is where the grind bites. It went from 111,500 to 250,000 XP, which the changelog lists as 124.2% slower. BULKHEAD says median players at 20–25 hours will be around level 20, while players pursuing big-ticket items—described as the top 5%—will need to grind. BULKHEAD doesn’t say whether that means one track or all of them, and XP pace isn’t constant, so we don’t turn it into hours for higher levels. For scale, 250,000 ÷ 250 = 1,000 air-vehicle player kills, and 1,000,000 ÷ 250 = 4,000. These are numerical comparisons, not confirmed role-track levelling routes: the changelog does not say which track receives that XP.

BULKHEAD hasn’t published XP-per-hour figures, so these methods are ranked by source strength, not by measured speed.

Driver got the biggest reshuffle. This is the Season 1 ladder from BULKHEAD’s official changelog, with unlock levels where it lists them.

Career Track Gates

Career moves in Season 1, per the official changelog: Sports Parachute from 36 to 35, Large Backpack from 56 to 55, 762x54mm AP from 83 to 82, 556mm AP from 85 to 83, and Deagle from 90 to 85. The Artillery Tank went from Career 55 to Career 90, and its unlock cost rose from $400,000 to $500,000. A separate Career XP curve is not stated in the Season 1 changelog. Community sources describe Wardog level as the sum of role levels, but that relationship is not stated in the BULKHEAD posts checked through 26 September 2026. For how the Career level fits into the wider grind, see the WARDOGS leveling guide to the Season 1 XP curve.

What Changes on 15 October

BULKHEAD has scheduled Season 02 for 15 October 2026 but hasn’t released content details. Because each season gets its own XP curve and item order, the tables above describe Season 1 only. The WARDOGS Season 2 release date guide tracks the launch.

Published Driver unlock-price changes: URAL $35,000; Dune Buggy $25,000; Kodiak Flatbed $35,000; Music Tape H $2,500. Other Driver prices are not stated in the Season 1 changelog.

BULKHEAD’s official Patch 0.11 post (12 September 2026) sets three separate penalties. Abusing a cash exploit or bug gets a timed ban, with the length based on previous bans, and your cash and XP are reset to 0. Making content that teaches an economy exploit without reporting it counts as advertising cheats and gets a permanent ban. If your account is tracked joining a known XP-farming server for more than a few minutes, it’s banned permanently. BULKHEAD says it tracks every server you enter. The post also says it doesn’t want people to stop posting about bugs on social media or Discord. What it’s drawing a line against is promoting an exploit. The WARDOGS community servers guide covers which servers are safe to join.

Update 0.1.2 (30 September 2026) went further. It fixed several cash and XP exploits: revive checks are now fully server-authoritative, vehicle fly-through rewards are capped, rewards for destroying buildables scale with their build progress, and pallets deposited into a FOB outside the zone pay less. BULKHEAD says anyone caught abusing cash and XP exploits, or real-money trading, has had cash and progression reset, that the leniency shown to first-time offenders is over, and that repeat exploit abuse now risks a permanent ban without warning. The same update added a DEPLOY screen that points players to Official, Community, Infantry Mode and Low-Level servers; BULKHEAD gives no XP rates for any of them. Source: BULKHEAD, “WARDOGS | Update 0.1.2 (Minor Patch)”, Steam.

Myth: Assault is an official track

Not under that name. BULKHEAD’s 15 September stats call it Infantry; “Assault” is a community name. Career isn’t one of the six role tracks either: it’s the separate Wardog ladder.

Myth: Selling supply-crate items under $75 still pays 25 XP

That was true before Season 1, when it paid 25 XP. It now pays 1 XP per the official Season 1 changelog on Steam.

Sources and Confidence

Where each claim comes from, and how far to trust it.