WARDOGS Season 3 patch notes: Sabatulo, Limited Mode and what changed for you

The short version

Season 3 of WARDOGS Early Access went live on Thursday 12 November 2026 as update 0.3.0, after a maintenance window that ran from 13:00 to 15:00 UTC. The season is meant to run for roughly three months, and it slows progression down on purpose, so we have put the long lists into tables and spent the words on what each change means for the way you level, fight and spend.

If you only read one part, make it the progression section, because every role level from 10 upwards now costs more XP, armor and backpacks unlock on every track, and the tanks have moved a long way down the Driver track.

Sabatulo, the first city map

Sabatulo is the first WARDOGS map built around a city, with tight streets, tall high-rises and a lot of destruction, and its landmarks are a central hospital, a swimming pool, a power station and the embankment along the river. Most of your fights there will happen room to room and street to street, while whoever takes the high points gets to watch over a large part of the city.

Its Control Zone rotates between four locations, the Hospital, the Bazaar, the River and the Hillside, and each one has a hot zone radius of 85 metres. You can look over the city and its zones in the map explorer before your first match there.

Limited Mode

Limited Mode is a new game mode whose vendor only sells what is usually available early to mid season, so the endgame items that decide a lot of late-season fights stay out of the match.

• No Hollow Point (HP) or Armor Piercing (AP) ammo.
• No Level 3 or Level 4 armor.
• No attack vehicles.
• No CIWS, Stingray, MG Nest or Drill Rig.
• No anti-tank mines.

The cash and progression you earn in Limited Mode carry over to every other mode, and the server browser now shows Limited servers and lets you filter for them. If you are joining partway through the season, or you simply want fairer fights while your own unlocks catch up, this is the mode we would start on.

Slower leveling and the catch-up bonus

Every role level from 10 onwards now takes more XP, and BULKHEAD has aimed the overall speed back towards Season 1. In practice the middle of the track is now slower than Season 1 was, so getting from level 15 to level 35 is where you will feel it most.

Level 20, which took 111,500 XP in Season 2, now takes 275,000 XP, and level 50 has gone from 1,150,000 to 1,950,000 XP. The top of the ladder moved the least, so level 100 costs you 29 percent more than it did, against 147 percent more at level 20.

To keep players with less time in the race, Season 3 adds an XP catch-up bonus and an extended vendor discount for low-level players. Both kick in week by week as the season goes on, both keep growing until it ends, and both are worked out per role, so a role you have barely touched gets more help than the one you play every night. The idea is that a late starter can still reach the midgame items of a role, and the counters to the endgame ones, before the season is over.

Multi-track unlocks

Shared items can now be unlocked from more than one role track. Armor, helmets, backpacks, tactical vests and parachutes sit on every track, and ammo types are spread across the tracks according to where the weapons that fire them unlock, so you can earn them by playing the role you enjoy instead of dipping into several roles to push your WARDOG level. BULKHEAD calls this a temporary solution until an intel-based progression system arrives next year.

The unlock costs are the same on every track, at $10,000, $50,000, $100,000 and $200,000 for the four armor tiers and $7,500, $37,500, $75,000 and $150,000 for the helmets. Each role reaches some of the shared items before the others do, which is meant to reinforce what that role is for, so Assault gets its armor first, Medic its tactical vest, Support its backpacks and Recon its AP ammo. Support can unlock the Field Backpack as early as level 2, for example, and a Medic gets the Medium Tac Vest at level 5.

The WARDOG track is now the slow way to most of this. Level 3 armor moved there from level 70 to 150 and Level 4 from 100 to 180, so on almost any role track you will reach the top armor long before your WARDOG level does.

These are the other moves that change what you can buy and when.

• Assault. C4 and the Remote Detonator move from level 4 to level 5 to make room for the shared items, while the Molotov moves forward from level 13 to level 8 and its unlock drops from $25,000 to $12,500.
• Support. The Large Hammer moves from level 8 to level 14, which makes a big base harder to put up early in the season, and the 9K333 Verba comes forward from level 14 to level 8 so that Support still has an anti-air answer when the AH-6M [Miniguns] comes online.
• Recon. The AMR 50 moves from level 35 to level 41, the Ghillie Body Suit (Dead) and its headwear go from level 41 to level 50, and the Infrared Range Finder has left the track.
• Driver. The tanks moved a long way down the track. The T-72B3 now unlocks at level 35 instead of 20, the SPH-2 at 40 instead of 31, the Flakpanzer Gepard at 45 instead of 25 and the L2A6 at 50 instead of 35. The Gepard's unlock went from $300,000 to $500,000 and the L2A6's from $500,000 to $750,000.
• Pilot. The Havoc stays at level 35, and its unlock goes up from $650,000 to $750,000. The large armored supply crate now unlocks at level 30 for $50,000, where it used to be level 15 for $25,000.
• WARDOG. The four tanks are back on this track, at levels 145, 155, 165 and 200 for the SPH-2, the T-72B3, the Gepard and the L2A6. The supply pallets now unlock later, at level 16 for spare parts, 24 for munitions and 30 for fuel, and the Driver and Pilot tracks carry them as well. The Sport Parachute moves from level 34 to 45, the GGX 18 from 85 to 110 and the Arsenal Backpack + 2 Slings from 150 to 190, while the Gold Exchange now costs $100,000 to unlock instead of $150,000.
• Ammo. Every Hollow Point tracer now costs $15,000 to unlock instead of $5,000, and on the WARDOG track most AP tracers moved later, with 7.62mm AP going from level 60 to 100 and from $50,000 to $75,000. The 5.45mm and 5.56mm AP tracers are the exceptions, and they come a little earlier, at levels 76 and 80 instead of 90 and 84.

When you want to plan your route through a track, the progression page lists every unlock with its level and its cost.

Assault rifles, LMGs and DMRs hit harder

Assault rifle torso damage is back to its Season 1 values, and LMG torso damage now matches the assault rifles. Both now do 13 percent more to the upper torso than in Season 2 and 3 percent more to the middle and lower torso, against every target, with or without armor, and armor still takes off the same percentage it did before.

DMRs got a bigger push, because BULKHEAD feels the Season 2 cuts went too far once they were combined with the new DMR recoil. The new values land between Season 1 and Season 2, and BULKHEAD has spelled out what that means in shots.

• Body. Every DMR now kills an unarmored player in 2 shots, down from 3.
• Armor. The SVD, the BMR-308 and the M14 need 1 to 2 fewer body shots at every armor level, and the SKS needs 1 fewer against Level 2 and Level 4 armor.
• Head. Every DMR now kills a player with no helmet in one headshot, down from two, and the SVD, the BMR-308 and the M14 kill through a Level 3 helmet in 2 headshots instead of 3.
• Neck. Neck damage went up, though it still takes 2 shots to kill.
• Arms and legs. No change.

The TCX-SPR climbs less in full auto and drifts less from side to side, so you can keep a spray on target for longer and pull its recoil down more easily. The Compound Bow's arrows fly 50 percent faster, which means they reach the target sooner and you need to lead a moving target less. To see where your guns now rank against each other, the TTK rankings put every weapon in a class side by side, and the damage calculator shows how many shots each armor tier takes.

The Molotov, parachutes and the Halligan Bar

The Molotov Cocktail was rarely unlocked last season, so BULKHEAD made it cheaper and nastier. Getting caught in its fire now sets you ablaze, which damages you and forces you to drop whatever you are holding, its unlock drops from $25,000 to $12,500 and it arrives at Assault level 8 instead of 13. In return it does less to armored vehicles and heavy armor, where it was overperforming.

The two parachutes are now built for different jumps, and the wrong one will get you killed.

• Basic Parachute. Now an emergency parachute for bailing out of helicopters. It takes longer to open, you can't pull it within about 20 metres of the ground, and it works from about 100 metres up, though you can still survive a jump from 60 metres if you react fast. It costs $1,250 instead of $500.
• Sport Parachute. Built for BASE jumps. It turns, glides and dives much faster, it has a stronger and longer flare, and it comes down a little faster, so you will want to steer it or flare to stay in the air. It works from about 60 metres, you can survive a jump from 40 metres if you react fast, and it costs $2,250 instead of $700.

Helicopter passengers now see their height above the ground just above the minimap, so you can check it against the effective height on your parachute's tooltip before you jump. A Basic Parachute off a tower is now an expensive way to die, and there is a new reward for parachuting into an enemy FOB to make up for the higher prices.

The Halligan Bar can now force open an enemy supply crate, which drops a random item from it onto the ground. The Infrared Range Finder is gone from the vendor until BULKHEAD is happy with a redesign, since the Season 2 battery nerf did not stop it turning up in almost every match.

Three item weights were corrected as well. The AMP-9 20 round magazine now weighs 0.3 kg instead of 1 kg, the Improvised Explosive Device 2.7 kg instead of 1.5 kg and its trigger 0.2 kg instead of 1.5 kg, so an IED kit now sits differently in your inventory. The loadout planner weighs your kit with the new values.

Vehicles

Wheeled vehicles now roll downhill when you are off the throttle, the Ural and the Humvee have slightly better traction at the rear, and the Ural, Kodiak, Humvee, Dune Buggy and Wolf-110 lose some grip once you push them past the top speed they reach under normal acceleration, which mostly happens going downhill. The Ural also can't reach silly speeds rolling backwards any more, since it now rolls back no faster than it drives forward.

Every wheeled vehicle reverses faster, so you can back out of trouble more quickly in a fight.

The vehicle miniguns do considerably more to infantry, which puts them between their Season 1 and Season 2 strength after the Season 2 nerf went further than BULKHEAD intended. You will see fewer moments where a target soaks up a whole burst, and newer pilots get more out of the gun.

The Little Bird AH-6R [Rockets] now fires its own 70mm rockets instead of sharing the Havoc's 122mm ones. They do the same damage to vehicles and infantry as before, and since they now wobble in flight, the AH-6R is a little less effective against infantry while it stays just as good against vehicles and FOBs. Pilots and co-pilots in the MH-6, AH-6R and AH-6M were being shot out of their seats far more often than the helicopter itself was being destroyed, so their cockpit damage protection rises from 25 to 40 percent, against 50 percent in Season 1.

The Vanguard CIWS now damages each section of a vehicle once per 20x102mm round, instead of several times as the round passes through, and its damage was retuned around that. The Havoc and the Z20 Lakota take roughly what they did in Season 2, the MH-6, AH-6R and AH-6M take slightly less, and the emplacement's maximum aim angle drops from 65 degrees to 60, which widens the blind spot right above it.

Tanks are far tougher against grenades, because a single grenade could destroy a tank's engine. Against all four tanks, a 40mm grenade went from doing 20 percent extra damage to 65 percent less, and the inner blast of a grenade now does 85 percent less instead of 60 percent less, so you'll want a rocket launcher for armor. The vehicle damage calculator shows what each launcher does to each part.

Vehicles other than the Bobcat can now flatten box hedges, and tanks and artillery can destroy stone walls. Supply crates can no longer be deployed inside safe zones, the same as pallets, because they were blocking vehicle spawns at HQ and getting in the way of pilots trying to land. Crates and pallets also break from lower drops now, and armored crates no longer survive higher drops than standard ones, though they still shrug off bullets and explosions.

Your speed counts as well as your height, so a drop from a moving helicopter lands harder, though you can still deploy safely at up to about 80 km/h from around these heights. The item tooltips show the new drop heights.

Four vehicles got cheaper. The Wolf-110 [M2 Browning] was overpriced for how exposed its driver and passengers are, the Kodiak [M249] came down with it to ease the longer grind towards a tank, and the two attack helicopters lost some of the upfront cost that was putting pilots off.

The window material that smeared your view from inside every vehicle in first person since Season 2 has been fixed as well. Every vehicle's numbers are in the vehicle database.

Cash and XP rewards

Destroying enemy emplacements pays double now. The L81 Mortar, the Talon 9K-SAM, the MG Nest and the Stingray each pay $1,300 instead of $650, and the Vanguard CIWS pays $2,400 instead of $1,200.

• Air vehicles earn kill streak rewards again when they kill enemy players.
• Destroying a vehicle with your own vehicle within 1,000 metres of a Control Zone now earns the full Control Zone reward, which pays helicopter dogfights properly.
• Pallets deployed outside a friendly FOB pay a reduced reward.
• A crate now pays according to the price of the items inside it, so dropping cheap crates for profit pays much less than it did.
• Depositing fuel into a FOB that activates a drill now pays you a kickback.
• Parachuting into an enemy FOB has a reward of its own.
• Playing on a community server pays a small cash bonus.

Killing a high-value target you spotted pays less than it did.

The vendor discount for a losing faction now depends on how far it is behind the faction in first place, instead of the faction one place above it, so the team in third gets a real discount to buy its way back into the match. To see what a whole run pays, put it through the Cash & XP calculator.

The Wager Vendor is gone

The Wager Vendor has been removed. Testing before Season 2 turned up too many possible exploits in his original design, and the nerfed redesign BULKHEAD trialled instead took away the high-stakes, high-reward role he was meant to play. He is back in development while the systems he needs are built, so don't plan your season around him.

Gold Market camos and the Movember 'Stache

Five new Gold Market camos arrive for Season 3: Black & Gold for the Defibrillator, for a limited time, Two-Tone Desert for the MAAWS, Digital Wood for the Compound Bow, and Chocolate Chip for both the M1911 and the FAL. The Black & Gold Little Bird camo stays on sale for two weeks into Season 3, to make up for Season 2 being shorter. You can follow the daily gold rate on our gold exchange page before you spend.

This November, WARDOGS is raising money for men's health with Movember. The Tactical 'Stache DLC gives you a mustache that grows the more you play during November, which you can wear only in November, and a Movember 2026 Scoreboard Badge you can wear all year. All of the profit from the DLC goes to Movember.

Everything else

• Three new Steam achievements: He's Behind You, Car Jacker and Slot Machine.
• Your Steam recordings now carry timeline events for kills, revives and giving up, each with its own icon, so clips are easier to find.
• During seeding, each team gets a few free unarmed vehicles, and every vehicle is cleared when the match starts.
• The team switch penalty, which hides tactical map information until you reach the Control Zone, now only applies if you were already connected to the server earlier in the same match.
• Community server admins can show a Server Rules popup to players as they join, and you can favourite community servers from the server browser or the pause menu. Deployment Select now has separate Official and Community sections for each mode.
• Squad invites and join requests now queue, up to five of each, instead of replacing each other, and the repair points on the attack Little Birds can now be reached.
• The Collection screen has a Player category for emotes, bobbleheads and badges.
• On controller you can move straight to the driver's seat by holding A, Handbrake and Fire (Pilot) moved to B, X (Hold) does a Reload Discard, and world interactions take a single press instead of a hold.
• Hollow Point hitmarkers have new sounds for armor and helmet hits, and there are new spotting voice lines for tanks, anti-air vehicles, the Wolf-110, MG Nests and supply crates, plus lines for players on fire or caught in barbed wire.

What the patch notes leave out

A handful of Season 3 changes have no line in BULKHEAD's notes, and a few of them are worth knowing before you play.

• Sabatulo's zone odds. The Hospital comes up twice as often as any other location, which works out to a 40 percent chance for the Hospital and 20 percent each for the Bazaar, the River and the Hillside.
• The TCX-SPR counts as an assault rifle. In Season 2 it took its hit-location damage from the DMR table, and it now uses the assault rifle one, so it gets none of the DMR buff. Its body shot multiplier goes from between 1.07 and 1.24 to a flat 1.0 and its headshot from 2.45 to 2.35, so alongside the recoil cut it becomes an easier gun to control whose hits each do a little less.
• 7.62mm DMR rounds. 7.62mm fired from a DMR, which today means the SKS, picks up two new penalties, doing 15 percent less against armor and 20 percent less against helmets on top of the DMR changes.
• Emplacements and ammo. The CIWS, the L81 Mortar and the MG Nest no longer skip their ammo checks and are now set up to be restocked, and the Stingray no longer skips its ammo check either, so we would plan on carrying munitions to every emplacement you build.
• Unlock prices. The Havoc, L2A6, Gepard, Hollow Point tracer, 7.62mm AP tracer, large armored crate and Gold Exchange price changes in the progression section above are not in the notes either.
• Lonestar. The win bonus Lonestar got for Season 2 is gone.
• Adrenaline Pens. Using the pen on the same player again cuts your reward faster than before, by half for each repeat where it used to be roughly a quarter.
• Deliveries. Crate and pallet deliveries pay less XP, and the delivery streak bonus for crates is smaller, in cash and in XP.