The Control Zone
One hundred players, three factions, one circle that decides everything. Here is exactly how the points land.
The shape of a match
A WARDOGS match puts up to 100 players on a 2 by 2 km map, split across three factions: Valkyra, Manticore and Lonestar. Your faction is assigned for the whole match. Everyone shops from the same armory, so the sides differ in color and company, never in firepower.
The Control Zone is a large circle, and it stays where it is for the entire match. What moves is the Hot Zone, a much smaller circle that drifts around inside it. Get that the wrong way round and every rotation you plan will be wrong.
How a point is scored
Every 22 seconds the game counts bodies. The faction with the most presence inside the Control Zone takes 1 point. Kills do not score. Presence scores.
Presence is not a straight headcount. Standing in the Hot Zone counts you as two players toward your faction. Being down and bleeding out counts you as zero, so a squad that trades evenly in the circle has not held it, and reviving a teammate puts a whole body back on the tally.
When two factions are level at the top, nobody scores. The tick fills up and then waits, and the point pays out the instant the deadlock breaks: a body walks in, an operator goes down, someone steps into the Hot Zone. Watch it play out:
Two of each in the zone. Valkyra and Manticore are level, so the tick has no winner to pay.
The practical read: four players spread across the Control Zone are worth less than two who are standing in the Hot Zone. If you are losing the tick, do not push wider, push in.
Drill towers and the tower code
The numbered towers around the map are drills. You capture one by getting inside it, and every tower your faction takes reveals one part of a longer key code. Collect the whole code and you can activate the tower, firing the Hot Zone Magnet and dragging the Hot Zone onto ground you already hold.
Every tower is needed. There is no majority shortcut, so the code only completes once the full set has fallen to one faction, which is why the last tower is usually the bloodiest. Worth knowing on the way up: tower roofs spawn randomised equipment, and looting one puts you on every sightline in the area.
Three minutes of doubled presence on ground you already hold is the strongest swing available to a coordinated faction. Fortify the tower before the last digit goes in, because the enemy sees the magnet fire too. Every tower sits on the artillery board if you want the gun laid before it activates.
Getting back in
Down does not mean dead. A teammate can revive you through the bleedout. Once you are fully out, you have options:
- HQ. Always available. Home of the weapon and vehicle vendors, and where you rebuy a kit.
- Spawn vehicle. A faction APC parked in the Control Zone becomes a forward spawn. Driving one into the circle pays the driver $3,000, the largest single objective payout in the game, and killing an enemy one is worth $5,000.
- FOBs. Player-built forward bases handle logistics and resupply. They do not spawn you.
Talk to your faction
Squads have no size cap and carry their own radio, and everyone around you hears proximity voice. A faction that calls the Hot Zone drift, the APC position and the drill code wins ticks it has no business winning. Load out accordingly: the planner prices the whole kit before you spend a dollar in the lobby.