WARDOGS New Gameplay and Details...

Today we got some brand new gameplay and information, tons of details about War Dogs, which is a game that I've been keeping a very close eye on. War Dogs is a combined arms warfare game with 99 players, kind of an evolution of King of the Hill from Arma, and it has an economy system tying all of the gameplay actions together. It's really interesting and it's definitely one to watch in my opinion if you like games like Battlefield and Arma. So, the developers shared this new video with me, which was really kind of them, and also some B-roll which we're looking at now. But, we're going to be react- -ing live to the new video. Apparently, it's got a lot of juicy stuff in there and also some information about expectations for the game, early access, some specific questions that they were asked to and they've decided to go ahead and answer them and clarify things, clear a few things up. So, without further ado, let's play the video now and take a look. So, the title of the new video is early access and beyond. So, what what was it like then pitching War Dogs to publishers? Uh if you're designing games for everybody, you're you're kind of designing a game for nobody. Being an actual and then having [music] to go to publishers and convince effectively bankers why players want this game over a battle royale is is is just soul-destroying. Relying solely on data to design games just doesn't work. We don't want to make something that everyone [music] else is making. We want to make something familiar but new. And this is why War Dogs isn't built for everyone. It must be an absolute nightmare sometimes if you're trying to make a game that you want to make, but then your publisher is just going, "Nah, but what about battle royale though?" I'm sure that must have happened many times. Anyway, okay, so it's kind of like they're not making a game for everyone. They've got this specific thing that they want to make and that's what they're doing. I think they're majority self-funded now, too, though. So, I don't think they're going to have that problem anymore. People keep saying that War Dogs is going to be a Battlefield killer. Uh-oh. War Dogs is not a Battlefield killer. It's got its own identity. It's fundamentally more tactical in terms of decision-making and pacing. Has higher highs due to the risk of reward nature of the cash system. [laughter] But, that naturally also comes with lower lows, a friction that you don't see in smooth-edged triple-A releases. And it's friction that helps shape a game's identity. What he's referring to here with the friction is the cash system in the game. So, if you do something good in the game, you earn money. If you do something bad in the game, you lose money. So, in that clip with the helicopter, the pilot flew upside down and killed all of the teammates, and you can see in the top right it said like team kill, and then they lost a load of money for team killing. I think it was like minus $1,500 for every team kill. And that's going to come out your bank balance, which is not good. So, when you do good stuff, you'll feel those higher highs cuz money go up, and then when you do bad stuff or don't play well, money go down. It's going to hurt a bit more. So, I guess in theory you're going to feel way more connected to the game that way. For a lot of our design choices, we use this scale to help guide when something's too hardcore or too arcadey. So, if you're trying to explain the game to your friends, this scale should help you show them where War Dogs sits. So, that's quite interesting that they've made that little graphic there. So, they're saying War Dogs is in between COD, BF6, Arma, and Tarkov. It's definitely more towards the hardcore milsim side there, but only a little bit, maybe like 60% towards the milsim. It's a bit of a mix is what they're saying, basically. In War Dogs, every life matters. Every decision you make matters. And because of that, the game fundamentally has levels of friction. Your loadout has a cost, which means every life has a value. So, the more equipment you take in, the more death can hurt. War Dogs has no squad spawn system, so you can't just respawn on your friends. You have to make your way back to them. That's the milsim side. War Dogs has realistic gunplay. Bullet drop, penetration, ricocheting bullets, we have a lot. I like this. It just means that you have to think before you pull the trigger. This is all friction a publisher will tell you puts people off the game. For gaming, though, it's the challenges that give games identity in the first place. Yeah, I agree with that. I definitely think you're seeing more and more games, especially in the FPS space in the last 5 years or so, that are just catering towards the big casual audience trying to make things as accessible as possible, but they get boring really quick. There's no depth in them. There's no team play. And this thing about your life matters, that's the hook they're going for. It matters because the money that you spend on your kit in that particular life and everything that you do in that particular life should matter to you because it's all affecting your overall bank balance, rather than in a game like COD where you know, I'll just respawn and there's no consequence. Not going to be for everyone, and being honest, it's not going to be for me every day. Some days I'm going to want to play Battlefield, I'm going to want to play COD, I might want to play Arma, I might want to play War Dogs. Really depends what mood I'm in. War Dogs' core session loop is addictive and replayable. But, the meta game is a work in progress. Let us show you what we'll be building while we're in early access and why you [music] will be able to continue to play War Dogs for years to come. Yeah, meta game is going to be a massive deal with this, I think. If they get it right. Throughout a season in early access, you'll be able to optionally exchange your banked cash you've earned for in-game gold bars. Gold bars are the end-game currency that you use to purchase end-game cosmetics that become permanently unlocked on your account. So, when I spoke to the developers previously, they said that you're not going to be able to buy cosmetics with real money. You're going to have to use the gold bars that you get by converting your in-game cash. So, if you see somebody wearing a sick skin and you know it's really hard to get, you know that they've earned that with their actions in the game. They haven't just bought it because they're rich in real life. Now, here's where things get spicier. The exchange rate of cash to gold bars will fluctuate daily, which means every time that you log in, you, alongside the rest of the community, will have a choice. Do you invest now or do you buy in the dip? At the end of the season, [laughter] your cash and XP progression will reset with your cash auto-converted into gold bars. This will allow newer players to be on a more level playing field with veterans and us as developers to overhaul the meta progression throughout early access. Your gold bars and cosmetics from a season will stay permanently on your account across seasons. On top of the core loop, we'll have the following features planned which will permanently reward your time spent in the game. They've got a whole ass stock exchange there with the gold bar system. We'll see how that plays out. They said there, too, that the cash wipes at the end of the season and is converted into gold bars. So, I suppose that's a balancing feature so you can't just hoard cash forever, that you've got like millions and millions in your bank account and that doesn't ever have an impact on your gameplay decisions. And like they said there, it's going to be better for new players coming in, too. They did tell me previously, as well, that they're going to balance weapons and vehicles and equipment with the economy system. So, if a gun is really OP in one they can just jack the price of it. Player skills will give you a meaningful way to build permanent account value across seasons. By simply playing the way that you want to, you'll earn skill points every time that you rank up. Whether you're a medic looking to revive faster, an infantry player refining weapon handling, or a pilot optimizing fuel efficiency, you can invest your skill points into the roles that match your play style. This incremental but permanent progression ensures that veterans can feel their efforts paying off. That's kind of like our career is you've always got passive skills that you can level up. The challenge system will provide extra short-term goals as a way to reward exploring different play styles, earning you additional resources for your account which can be invested in the black market. This is new, I think. Now, this is a big one. We want you to be able to spend your earnings in more interesting ways outside of the match so you're geared up for the next time you play with your mates come back online. That can mean bribing an arms dealer to smuggle you weapons or ammo overnight or dealing with the seedy underground of Cold War and placing wages, betting you can kill 10 enemies in one life in the next match. For time-strapped players, we want to add the ability to invest your cash and upgrade your own businesses. Hear me out. So, you can make wages on how many kills you're going to get. Can you make wages against squadmates and say, "I bet you don't get more than 20 kills" and they can join your wager and if they get more than 20 kills, they get your money or something something stupid like that. I don't know. Having your side hustle businesses making you items for the next time you and your mates get back online to play is the true end game. Buying out a weapon or a vehicle manufacturer will enable you to produce custom loadouts and items that you like to use the most cheaper than the in-match vendor. And remember, this is a 100% player-driven sandbox. If you're really business-savvy, you should consider unlocking high-level items and then selling them to other players in the match via supply crates with your own markup to make a profit or just compete and sell them cheaper than the guy next to you. You can be an arms dealer. market meta features will be entirely optional if you just want to run a gun and earn your cash that way. But, for the players who want to min-max their cash spending and time spent in and out of the game, there's a real potential to profit more over a season compared to someone only buying weapons and vehicles from the in-game vendors. Got you. So, black market is another optional meta layer, but it seems like the people who get really entrenched in the game are going to be min-maxing the crap out of that. I suppose it could be a way for community members to make a name for themselves, too. Like being known as the cheapest arms dealer in EU or somebody who manufactures tanks and supplies the most tanks in North America. Finally, we have the vault. Every gold bar, item, weapon, or vehicle you obtain from the black market ends up in your personal vault and is redeemable for free in future matches. Nice. The size of your vault will be capped but upgradeable permanently. Another end-game goal for you to optionally work towards. The meta-game is the thing that packages up War Dogs as an experience [music] players can stick with. Like we said, it's not all ready on day one. This is something we're building during our time in early access, but it's something that has been designed and the foundations are in. This is not a pipe dream. Let us know in the comments what you think about the meta-game and if it's something you could see yourself [music] getting into. That's cool. They're being honest with it. There are many more features we want to add to the game alongside the usual content drops, balance patches, and quality of life updates throughout early access, but it will take time as we develop towards the full release and console versions of War Dogs. So, I guess that's kind of confirmed console versions then. In the past, I felt like the language was a bit ambiguous, but uh they just came out and said it then. Obviously, they're seeing a big demand for it on console, too. We have over 350,000 wishlisters already on Steam now, so we're preparing for a strong early access launch later this year. But, we're also expecting a drop-off. That's completely normal for most games. War Dogs isn't being built for everyone. It's being made for players who really get what we're trying to do. With the recent discourse around player numbers with various high-profile AAA flops, we want to make sure we're realistic about our own expectations for the War Dogs community straight out of the gate as we don't need the same profits massive AAA releases do to keep the lights on. If War Dogs settle somewhere between 3,000 to 10,000 daily concurrent players, that's success to us. Look at games like Squad and Hell Let Loose, games that launched with a strong identity and knew the players they were making the game for and why. Still being played by thousands of players every day years after their release. That level of community support for War Dogs will keep servers active and the community will always be able to play and host their own servers no matter what. Every additional copy sold to a new player will be directly funding future content. It's that simple. You buy the game, you play it, and we can keep building upon the early access foundations we're talking about right now long into the future. Quite refreshing seeing developers speak like this. I do think they're going to get a lot more than 3,000 players though, but to them if that's true what he's saying there, they'd be happy if there was 3,000 to 10,000 players playing the game and they were enjoying it. I think that's what he said. And then the goal would be for them to keep updating the game, keep the players happy. I think the game's going to have a lot more mass appeal than that though. But to them, like he said, as long as they can keep the lights on and keep updating the game and keep the players happy that are actually playing the game, that's enough. War Dogs is available to wishlist on Steam now and anyone can sign up to our closed playtests. In the meantime, follow us on Steam and X for the latest updates as we head towards early access later this year. Oh, I think that's it. So, they didn't confirm an early access date, but I'm guessing it's going to start around September, that kind of time. It makes sense before MW4 and Grand Theft Auto come out. Maybe that's a really good spot for it. I think that's everything that was in the new video. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below. As I've always said with this game, I haven't played it yet, so I don't know if it's actually fun. It looks pretty fun and I like the mechanics and everything that they're saying here. They're ticking a lot of boxes for me, but performance, netcode, obviously, that's a big deal. I really hope that they've got that locked in. That's all, guys. Thank you for watching. Drop me a like. Subscribe if you're new here and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.