Wardogs began its early access run with a number that is hard to ignore: Bulkhead’s multiplayer FPS sold 1.25 million copies in its first 24 hours. The result makes the game one of the rare bright spots for competitive shooters in a year described as a difficult one for the genre’s new releases.The performance did not come out of nowhere. During a beta weekend in August, Wardogs had already drawn half a million players to test the pre-release version. When early access opened last week, demand was high enough to take the game’s servers down, making for a busy launch for the wrong reasons as well.Bulkhead announced the first sales figures in understated fashion. The studio thanked players and said it is continuing to monitor everything, keeping an eye on the servers and watching the community play. The reference to the servers speaks directly to the wave of negative reviews that followed the technical problems at launch.Even with the turbulence, selling 1.25 million copies in one day is a strong sign for Wardogs. In a market where several recent multiplayer shooters have struggled to retain an audience, the game’s debut stands out by contrast.The year got off to a rough start for the genre with Highguard, which launched in January with high initial player counts but saw those numbers quickly fall to an unsustainable level. The result was the game’s shutdown just a few weeks later. In March, Bungie released Marathon, which drew praise for its art and design but failed to achieve the success Bungie and Sony had hoped for, with concurrent player numbers below those of Destiny 2.Other titles cited as promising, such as Last Flag and Empulse, also failed to attract a meaningful audience. Against that backdrop, Wardogs begins its run with strong sales, while Bulkhead still has to deal with server stability and player reaction during early access.
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