“We were wrong”: Wardogs devs end Season 2’s team-specific cash and XP bonus experiment after a single, tumultuous day

Wardogs developer Bulkhead has cancelled a Season 2 scheme that gave extra cash and XP to the game’s struggling Lonestar faction, known as Blue Team. The bonus attracted more players than expected, but also created matchmaking problems and gave the most active players large progression rewards, prompting the company’s chief executive to admit the experiment had failed.

The scheme offered Blue players 5% extra cash and 2.5% extra XP. Players rushing to join Blue sometimes left other teams short, delaying matches, while top players accumulated thousands of extra in-game dollars. Bulkhead says map spawn changes on Bakuriani have helped Blue’s win rate and will remain; it has also temporarily slowed vehicle progression after an exploit let players earn XP by repeatedly driving in and out of headquarters.