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The Setting
October 14, 2026 at 11:10 AM
Added Bakurani as the first officially named map, the Season 2 rain weather preset and Lonestar's private military company description
WARDOGS takes place in a modern military setting fought across the derelict industrial mountains of Eastern Europe. Crumbling factories, worn infrastructure, and rugged high ground form the backdrop for its large-scale battles. The battlefield is vast, around 256 square kilometres, with the active Control Zone dropping into a different part of it each match.


The conflict is set in a war-torn region called Kolchia. According to the developers, the fighting centres on PV-1, a rare resource that has fuelled decades of Eurasian conflict. Kolchia is described as containing multiple locations and points of interest, which is where the randomised zone and its surrounding battles play out. Early access opened on 10 September 2026 with three maps, each carrying three different variations, so the same ground can be fought over in more than one configuration. One of those maps has since been named in the studio's own text: the Season 2 preview, published on 9 October 2026, says that all faction spawns have moved on Bakurani. As of 14 October 2026 the other two maps have not been named in official text, and no list of the places on any map has been published. Numbered towers do turn up in official clips, one of which is built around a surprise attack at Tower 4, which points at towers as recurring positions to fight over rather than at any map name.
The look of the region was built from photography rather than invented whole. The team has said it gathered reference firsthand in Georgia and describes the world as grounded in reality, which is where the derelict plants, worn concrete, and steep valleys come from.
Season 2, scheduled for 15 October 2026, adds a rain weather preset that changes visibility, engagement ranges and sound. The studio says rain interacts with the environment, including damaged and destroyed structures, and that thunder is synchronised across the server and can briefly mask footsteps.
WARDOGS does have named sides. Each match is contested by three rival factions: Lonestar, the heavy-hitters of the Western paramilitary world, which the studio has since described as an established private military company backed by one of the world's leading economies; Valkyra, a force seeking to return the Soviet People’s Republic to greatness; and Manticore, the Kingdom of Persia and Tehran’s shadow army. These identities set the colour and flavour of each side, while the fight over the zone is what actually drives a match. As a player-versus-player sandbox, the game leans on this setup rather than on a scripted single-player campaign.