The September beta is over. What’s next?

You cannot play right now

The most recent test was a closed beta that BULKHEAD opened to everyone on 5 September, and it ran until Sunday 6 September at 08:00 UTC. That window has closed. No playtest, beta or demo is currently running, and the studio has announced no further test before release.

The tests that have run

BULKHEAD has been publicly testing since spring. Pre-alpha playtesting with a small group was announced on 7 June. Closed Beta 1 ran 21–23 August, with access guaranteed to pre-orders after the studio said it had exhausted the Steam keys it could distribute externally. Closed Beta 2 was announced on 1 September ahead of The FPS Games Show, opened to everyone on 5 September, and closed on the 6th. The studio described that last one plainly as a scale test — its words were that it wanted players to jump in and break its systems.

A past invitation is not a current one

Beta access was granted in waves and, for the August test, guaranteed to people who pre-ordered. None of that carries forward: it bought entry to a test that has ended, not early entry to the release. Early Access on 10 September is a normal purchase and does not require a pre-order.

What the tests were for

BULKHEAD's post-beta note after the August weekend thanked the turnout and said milestones were hit and lessons learned, without publishing what those lessons changed. So there is no official changelog between the beta build and the launch build — which is worth knowing, because a lot of what is written online about how WARDOGS plays was learned in a build that may no longer match.

Where a live answer will come from

Not from here. This page records announcements; it does not poll servers, and we are not going to imitate a status dashboard we cannot back. The Steam store page, BULKHEAD's Steam announcement feed and the official Discord are where availability and outages are acknowledged first, and all three are linked below.

Common questions