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WARDOGS goes into Steam Early Access on 10 September. Before that, BULKHEAD has put two things on the table: a second closed beta that only pre-orders can enter, and a $100,000 clip contest. Both were announced within three days of each other, and neither comes with the dates people are asking for.
TL;DR
- Closed Beta 02 is pre-order only. A pre-order guarantees access; everyone else waits on Steam Playtest invites
- Invites go out in waves, deliberately — not as one open flood
- It starts “right after The FPS Games Show” (3 September, 18:00 UTC). No start or end date has been published
- BULKHEAD named exactly what it is stress-testing: server scaling and the server browser, Twitch Drops, DLC entitlements, VOIP and the login queue
- $100K contest: 99 runners-up get $100,000 of in-game cash each, the top clip wins $100,000 in real money. Entry is a clip posted publicly with #WARDOGS100K
- Closing date, judging criteria and eligibility rules are not published at the time of writing
Who Actually Gets Into Closed Beta 02
The announcement is blunt about it: “Pre-Order now to guarantee access — with limited access being handed out in waves.”
So there are two doors. A pre-order is the guaranteed one. The other is a Steam Playtest invite, and those are released in batches rather than all at once, which means having requested access is not the same as having it this weekend.
The client side has not changed from the first beta: it is a separate Playtest install with its own requirements, which we covered in the Playtest client and anti-cheat guide. If you were in the August beta, that install is the same route in.
Players short on time can put WARDOGS boosting alongside a normal playthrough rather than in place of one.
Why It Is Not an Open Beta — and What That Tells You
This is the most informative paragraph BULKHEAD has published this month, because it lists the failure modes the studio expects.
The wave structure exists “to validate the stability of our systems properly”, and the systems named are server scaling and browsing, Twitch Drops, DLC entitlements, VOIP and the login queue. The studio calls it “a genuine scale test where we want players to jump in and break our systems”.
Read that list again
Four of those five are account and storefront plumbing, not gunplay. Entitlements decide whether the edition you paid for shows up; the login queue decides whether you get in at all on day one. A studio testing those a week before Early Access is testing the launch, not the game.
The show itself ran on 3 September at 18:00 UTC (2 PM EDT / 7 PM BST) on Twitch, and the beta was said to follow it. A more precise schedule than “right after” has not been posted.
The $100K Clip Contest: What Is Actually Published
The contest has its own site, and the prize structure there is specific.
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| #1 featured clip | $100,000 in real money |
| 99 runners-up | $100,000 of in-game cash each |
Entry is described as sharing your clips with the hashtag #WARDOGS100K on as many social platforms as you like, and the featured clips are selected by BULKHEAD after the competition closes.
That is the whole published mechanism. Note what is missing from it: when it closes, what makes a clip eligible, whether beta footage counts, which regions can receive the cash prize, and how the top clip is chosen. None of that has been stated.
Before you build a week around this
A contest with a named prize and no published closing date or rulebook is a contest you enter on trust. If you plan to compete seriously, keep your raw footage — re-uploading a compressed clip later is the usual way people fail an eligibility check they did not know existed.
What This Changes Before 10 September
Practically, three things.
The pre-order is now the access route, not just a discount question. Everything confirmed about the Early Access build — price, content and the absence of a public roadmap — is in our Early Access breakdown. Beta access is now a second reason to decide early rather than on the 10th.
Progress is a beta question, not a launch question. BULKHEAD has not said that anything from Closed Beta 02 carries into Early Access. Treat the weekend as testing, not as a head start.
The clock on your own account starts on the 10th. If the plan is to be competitive in the first week rather than levelling through it, that is what our WARDOGS account leveling is for — manual, on your account, with a rent-a-booster option if you would rather play alongside someone than hand the account over.
Common Misconceptions
Myth: the second beta is open to everyone this time
It is the opposite of that. BULKHEAD explicitly chose waves over an open beta so it can watch the systems buckle in stages.
Myth: a Playtest request gets you in
A request puts you in the pool. Invites are limited and released in waves; only a pre-order is described as guaranteeing access.
Myth: the top 100 clips all win $100,000 in cash
One clip wins real money. The other 99 win in-game currency of the same nominal figure, which is a different thing wearing the same number.
Myth: the beta has published dates
It has a trigger — after the show — and no dates. Anything more precise circulating right now is someone’s inference.
Our Take
Our Take
The beta is a launch rehearsal and the contest is a marketing engine — both are worth understanding as what they are.
The system list is the useful part of this announcement. Login queues, entitlements and Twitch Drops are exactly what breaks on day one of an Early Access launch with a big wishlist behind it, and BULKHEAD is buying itself a week of real load to find those breaks. That is a good sign about the launch, not a bad one.
The contest deserves more caution — not because the prize is implausible, but because the rules that decide who wins it have not been published. Enter it because you were going to post clips anyway. Do not restructure your week around a deadline nobody has stated.
Sources and Confidence
Everything above is traceable to BULKHEAD. Where the studio has not published something, this page says so instead of guessing.
| Claim | Where it comes from | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Closed Beta 02 announced; pre-order guarantees access; invites in waves | Closed Beta 02 Announcement, 1 September 2026 | Confirmed by studio |
| Systems under test: server scaling and browsing, Twitch Drops, DLC entitlements, VOIP, login queue | Same announcement | Confirmed by studio |
| The FPS Games Show, 3 September, 18:00 UTC / 2 PM EDT / 7 PM BST | Same announcement | Confirmed by studio |
| Prize split: $100,000 real money for the top clip, $100,000 in-game cash for 99 runners-up; entry via #WARDOGS100K | wardogs100k.com | Confirmed on the official contest site |
| Early Access date and price | Our Early Access breakdown | Previously confirmed by studio |
| Closed Beta 02 start and end dates | — | Not published — “right after” the show is all that was said |
| Contest closing date, eligibility and judging criteria | — | Not published at the time of writing |
| Whether beta progress carries into Early Access | — | Not stated by BULKHEAD |
Checked 4 September 2026.