Wardogs CEO Acknowledges Infantry Server Shortfall as Bulkhead Refines Its Balance Plans

Wardogs arrived in Steam early access with the kind of immediate player attention that can be both encouraging and difficult for a smaller development team to manage. The multiplayer FPS attracted hundreds of thousands of players within a couple of weeks of launch, creating heavy demand for maintenance, queues, server access, and updates. Bulkhead CEO and executive producer Joe Brammers has now directly addressed one of the game's more noticeable gaps: the limited availability of dedicated infantry-only servers.

Brammers said Bulkhead is currently falling short of getting those servers in front of players. The studio had initially opted to let community servers provide the infantry-only experience, but he said that approach has not resulted in enough active options for the audience trying to find them. The admission is a notable one because infantry-focused play is not simply a minor ruleset variation in a large-scale shooter. It changes the rhythm, threats, tactics, and perceived balance of an entire match.

In Wardogs, infantry-only servers remove vehicles operating both on the ground and in the air. That means players entering those matches are not dealing with the influence of helicopters, ground vehicles, or the wider disruption those tools can bring to a battlefield. Instead, success rests much more heavily on movement, positioning, squad coordination, shooting, and the ability to win engagements on foot.

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Why infantry-only matches matter

Vehicle-heavy warfare is often central to the appeal of a large multiplayer FPS, but it can also produce a very different experience from conventional infantry combat. A player looking for direct gunfights may find that vehicles can abruptly reshape an encounter, whether through mobility, firepower, reconnaissance, or the chaos they generate around an objective. An infantry-only environment strips away much of that unpredictability and puts more of the match's emphasis on individual mechanical skill and ground-level tactical decisions.

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That makes the mode especially important for a portion of the Wardogs community. Some players want the full combined-arms spectacle, where vehicles are a major strategic asset and teams must react to threats from several directions. Others would rather play in a more focused environment where a firefight is decided by the people directly involved rather than by a vehicle arriving at the wrong moment. Neither preference is inherently wrong, but they require reliable server options if both groups are meant to feel supported.

The trouble is that a mode does little for the player base when it cannot be found consistently. If the available infantry-only matches are sparse, difficult to locate, full, or inactive at certain times, the intended alternative to combined-arms play becomes unreliable. Brammers' comments indicate Bulkhead has recognized that its reliance on community-run servers has not yet provided the coverage that players expected.

"We're failing on getting Infantry servers to you guys," Brammers said, explaining that Bulkhead had originally decided to let community servers run the mode but was not seeing enough of them.

The wording leaves little ambiguity about the studio's assessment. Rather than presenting the situation as a minor technical complication or placing responsibility entirely on server operators, Bulkhead's leadership has acknowledged that the current outcome is inadequate for players seeking this style of game.

A launch surge brings practical challenges

Wardogs' fast start is central to the situation. Bringing in hundreds of thousands of players so soon after entering early access is a strong sign of interest, but sudden scale creates pressure across almost every operational part of a live multiplayer game. Server capacity and matchmaking are the most visible concerns, yet they are only part of the picture. A team also has to monitor performance, investigate bugs, respond to player feedback, manage queues, maintain stability, and decide which changes should be deployed first.

For an early access title, those demands can affect the speed of broader improvements. A developer may have planned substantial systems work, new modes, balance adjustments, and content additions, only to find that immediate maintenance issues require attention first. That does not necessarily change the long-term roadmap, but it can alter the order in which players see improvements arrive.

Queue-related pressures have been part of Wardogs' post-launch conversation, and the infantry-server shortage sits within that wider challenge of making sure players can access the experience they actually want to play. Popularity is valuable, particularly for a multiplayer game that needs an active population, but popularity without sufficient infrastructure can also expose weaknesses rapidly. The opening weeks of early access can become a real-time stress test for both the game and the studio behind it.

Bulkhead is still shaping its intended balance

Although Brammers conceded the infantry-server problem, he also described the current period as part of Bulkhead's ongoing effort to understand and tune Wardogs around its intended design. He characterized infantry mode as one way to alter the game by reducing the power of vehicles. That is an important distinction: the mode is not only a separate playlist for players who dislike vehicles. It can also function as one tool in a wider balance conversation about how much influence vehicles should have over the overall experience.

"We are learning more and more how to balance the game to our vision," Brammers said. The comment reflects a familiar early access reality. Developers can test ideas internally and collect feedback in smaller tests, but a large live audience will reveal patterns that are hard to predict beforehand. Players find unexpected combinations, preferred tactics, map-specific advantages, and pain points at a scale that can dramatically change how a system looks in practice.

For Wardogs, the question is not necessarily whether vehicles should be strong. In a combined-arms shooter, they are expected to matter. The harder task is ensuring that their impact remains engaging rather than overwhelming, and that players who want a more infantry-centric contest have a dependable route to it. Server availability, mode design, map flow, counters, and matchmaking can all influence whether that balance feels fair.

Infantry-only matches may therefore offer Bulkhead useful information as well as a popular play option. Player activity, retention, feedback, and the character of combat in those games could help the team better understand what the community values in vehicle-free fighting. At the same time, the studio will need to consider how that information fits with its broader vision for Wardogs rather than treating every playlist as an isolated problem.

Seasons 2 and 3 are positioned as the next steps

Brammers expressed enthusiasm for Wardogs' second and third seasons and for continuing development on the game. No specific additions, release dates, or server changes were detailed in these comments, so players should be cautious about assuming exactly what either season will contain. Still, the mention of those future seasons makes clear that Bulkhead sees the game's current struggles as part of an ongoing early access process rather than a change in direction.

That matters because Wardogs is being built in public, under the pressure of a rapidly formed player base. The immediate concerns are tangible: people want more dependable infantry-only server access, smoother entry into games, and continued attention to balance. The longer-term promise is that the developer can translate the lessons of this busy launch period into a stronger and more flexible multiplayer experience.

There are several areas players will likely watch closely in the months ahead:

• Whether infantry-only server availability improves beyond the current community-server model.
• How Bulkhead adjusts the influence of ground and air vehicles in the wider game.
• Whether queue and server-access pressures ease as the early access population settles.
• What Seasons 2 and 3 add to Wardogs' modes, systems, and overall progression.
• How clearly the team communicates priorities when maintenance needs compete with larger updates.

An early access test for player choice

The infantry-server issue ultimately comes down to player choice. Wardogs has attracted an audience with different ideas about what makes its battles exciting. For some, the game's appeal lies in unpredictable combined-arms conflict, including the pressure created by vehicles in the middle of a deployment. For others, the best moments are the tense, immediate fights between squads on foot. A healthy multiplayer ecosystem can make room for both, but only if the preferred ways to play are accessible often enough to matter.

Bulkhead has not hidden from the fact that infantry-only access is currently below that standard. Brammers' acknowledgement does not by itself solve the shortage, and there is no confirmed timetable here for a fix. However, it establishes that the studio sees the problem, understands why the mode is valuable, and is connecting it to its larger work on Wardogs balance.

For now, Wardogs remains a PC early access shooter dealing with the consequences of an enormous opening surge. The next challenge for Bulkhead is converting that attention into a consistently playable service: one where server options are easier to find, vehicle power fits the game's intended identity, and players can choose between large-scale chaos and focused infantry combat without being blocked by a lack of available matches.