An open letter to the developers from a Marine Veteran…

Let me start by saying, wow.

I saw a trailer for this game on instagram about a year ago and thought yea sure whatever, another battlefield/arma/squad/insurgency/whatever knockoff thats trying to make a cool game by implementing something “special”, 3 factions, money…whatever. Best of luck. I was very skeptical about this game because the current state of gaming, especially fps gaming, is down in a hole and I dont know if it can be saved…but maybe it can??? Maybe that game to save gaming and put the industry on notice is this game, WARDOGS.

My gaming buddies bought this game and I thought, fuck it…why not…whats $40, lets give it a spin.

I loaded into the tutorial and was immediately impressed and in awe, I did not expect a game that leans closer to ARMA/Squad to feel so smooth and accessible. Forget graphics, the art direction of this game is what stands out, the hour is odd and the air is fresh, you can feel the tension within the beauty of the landscape.

So anyways, I skipped the tutorial after learning how to pick up and shoot a gun. I said to myself, i’ll figure the rest out later..

My friends and I load into a nearly empty server, to my reluctance, because there were plenty of servers in the low 90s and alot that were packed to 100 with a queue. Immediately loads you into the base of your chosen faction, instant flashback to PUBG of running around and messing around with randoms and your friends. The server packs to 100 within 20 seconds of us doing that.

After learning how to load up via the armorer, we hop in one of those SUVs, and head down to the objective. I feel this sense of camaraderie immediately with my friends and the random that jumped in our SUV, we are flying down this road and my buddy is just learning how to drive, spins out a few times, we laugh. We get to our location, get out and start moving within a web of buildings. After a few minutes we get shot at, my buddy cant figure out his inventory system, and we get ran up on with somebody with a shotgun and a smile on their face. Damn, that was quick, we go back to base and load up again, same thing, we go to the industrial area, get rocked, same thing, we try to push a tower, we get clocked. The game feels very fun but I still feel as if I haven’t found my groove yet. I play alone, I get ran up on in a warehouse by a squad of dudes and get clapped.

….Then one moment it clicks

I grab binoculars and a sniper rifle, i take the long way around from HQ in my own personal truck. I abandon the truck in a forest near the CZ, I start to slowly weave my way through a network of forests and roads and then I find a good position overlooking a small town not far from the gunshots I hear, I wait and wait and wait and the next thing you know I see several hostiles running across the road from a small complex of houses to what seemed like an abandoned junkyard in a foresty area(its all foresty I know). I can only see one hostile, he aims down his sight behind a rusted and scrapped car while taking shots away from me, his back turned to me. I zoom my rifle in, steady, click bang. He flinches, runs backwards and hides behind a car I can roughly see through a twigs and leaves, he has no idea where I am, I reload, aim, steady, bang…his body falls flat to the ground, I scream with excitement. I stay in my position, continue to scan the area, the game ends. I am so excited, i clip it as a video to show my friend.

Eventually I find that the scout sniper sucks after headshotting helmetless enemies and not killing them. I pick up the SKS and ohhhh buddy the rest is history.

I really find my groove in the game with the SKS, I win firefights, I can kill multiple enemies at once without getting smoked by an enemy squad or having them all scram and run away before I can reload.

Now I figured out my combat flow, I can figure out the flow of the game and how I best fit, I start to run in the forests and scout the hotzones and repel enemies trying to contest it. Every kill feels so satisfying, it doesnt feel like “I went 17-8” anymore, I dont see k/d in this game, I think of those tense moments where I patrolled the forest for several minutes to finally find an unsuspecting squad and pick them off, or those moments where I linked up with a group of guys on that road outside of the soccer stadium, where we were getting shot at by a sniper and we were taking cover behind abandoned vehicles and walls trying to locate where this sniper was. It gave me an insane thrill to know so little. Communicating with the guys near me to try and get a read on where this sniper was, running out and to another form of cover to try and draw his fire, “CRACK” his bullet goes right by my head as I sprint and crouch down behind another abandoned vehicle. I pull my binoculars out to try and find him, no dice. I finally make my way into the office building at the stadium and I am finally able to locate the sniper ontop of an apartment building, I mark him with my binoculars, I pull out my SKS, zoom in when all of the sudden you see a muzzle flash come from the door and his body fall, the spot assist pops on my screen. I dont feel as if my “kill got stolen” I feel that satisfaction of “we got him”

The crazy thing is, it’s hardly any of that stuff that reminds me of the military..no..it’s the long trips in the SUVs with a group of guys from the HQ, bullshitting with them, riding in the back of a 7 ton transport with a whole squad of dudes ready for war, sitting around waiting for a bird to come pick you up, overlooking the battlefield and the scenery while in the chopper, you forget where you’re going, you just think where you are and you feel a strong sense of camaraderie with the random group of guys you just met. “Man thats a nice weapon, im gonna pick that up when you die, no offense its just the circle of life” like ive never heard that anywhere before in any other game and thats just the exact kind of humor you hear in the military, “you’re always one bullet away from squad leader” we would always joke. Also trekking across the woodlands for what seemed like forever, brought me back to my land nav courses in the north carolina woods. Hearing the birds chirp, so beautiful. And lastly, getting dropped off at a tower where guys are actively fortifying the base while yapping and having the radio on….that REALLY brought me back.

Anyways, I feel like i’ve said enough, I cannot compare this to any other game I have ever played in my life. This game gives me more than that “nostalgic feeling of playing battlefield 3 for the first time”, this game taps into my childhood imagination for the perfect video game, my identity as a gamer, and my identity as a Marine. The beta closing left me with a feeling that I can only equate to post concert depression. A longing ache to feel such thrill again

Again, to the developers and the community of this game, you guys, that i have found to be so awesome and a part of the immersion…thank you. Semper fi