Playing Wardogs is a bit like playing Battlefield, except you have to buy every gun, magazine, helmet, and kevlar vest yourself. It’s a milsim FPS that runs on a personal wallet—doing useful things for the team makes you money used to unlock permanent upgrades and temporary gear.
Wardogs is designed in a way that lets you play any role you want and still be a profitable teammate. But especially early on, it can be tough to make enough cash to consistently fund unlocks, and the game doesn’t spell out some of the most lucrative playstyles. Based on dozens of hours in closed beta tests, here are some early tips for making money fast in Wardogs.
Bulkhead has stated the economy of the beta will change for the early access release, so some of these figures might change at launch. I’ll be sure to update figures once we know them.
Spot, spot, spot with binoculars
The safest, simplest, and surprisingly efficient way to make money in Wardogs from minute one is to buy a $75 pair of binoculars. Binoculars (and its fancier variants) allow you to spot enemy soldiers, vehicles, and structures, temporarily marking them on the map and in-world for teammates.
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On top of just doing a nice thing for your team, each successful spot (holding left-click over a visible target) earns you a small cash prize immediately, and when a teammate kills that target, you get an assist worth hundreds. The nice part of this strategy early on is you don’t have to stick your neck out and risk your loadout before you understand the game: just perch up on a hill with a few of the Hot Zone or enemy FOBs, lay down, and be your team’s eyes and ears.
Build a FOB
Another extremely safe, profitable playstyle is to grab a hammer, buy a FOB module, and build a base for your team in a strategically useful location. The default FOB spot at the start of the match is the tower nearest to your spawn. Ask your heli pilot to load up with FOB supplies (or do this yourself), and head to a tower. Once you’re there:
- Place the FOB
- Build it by holding LMB with your hammer (hitting the yellow X’s makes it go faster)
- Use FOB supplies to build a perimeter of walls, gates, and Hesco blocks
Every productive swing of a hammer earns cash ($15 in the beta), and completing a build can be worth more than getting a kill ($1,200 to $1,500).
Revive others quickly and often
My favorite non-lethal way to make money while staying in the action is revives and heals. Reviving teammates is worth $900 (in the beta), and you can do it without buying any additional equipment. The problem is that the default revive speed is annoyingly slow, which is where resuscitators come in. The one-use revive items are cheap to buy in introductory levels, so if you want to become a human ambulance, you could:
- Buy the biggest backpack you can
- Fill it with resuscitators and bandages
- Follow teammates in the backline
- Quickly revive anyone who goes down for $900
- Get extra assist cash when they go on to get kills
- Heal teammates with bandages for $200 a pop
That’s what I did during beta weekends until I reached Medic level 11 and unlocked the defibrillator. Defibs are a larger investment at $1,600 (and $150 batteries), but they’re the quickest way to revive teammates and each battery is good for five revives.
Drive the spawn vehicle to the zone
This won’t always be an option, as only one person can do the job at a time, but driving your team’s spawn vehicle (the APC with a satellite dish on top) from HQ to the zone is a quick gig that pays royalties. You can drive the APC to a FOB, leave it there, and make money every time a teammate uses it.
Be a taxi
The best way to get from spawn to the zone in Wardogs is the spawn APC. When that’s not an option, everyone needs a taxi. The cheapest way to earn cash as a virtual uber is to practice flying a helicopter in the firing range, then ferry people back and forth to the zone. Not only do you get direct cash for dropping people off in the zone, but nice people will give you tips, and you’ll also get assist cash if they go on to get kills.
You have to be in the mood to do this job well: Helicopters aren’t cheap for a new player, and you have to be good enough at flying to not crash or get blasted out of the sky by an RPG. Plus, you’re essentially ignoring the shooting part of this shooter, which won’t appeal to everybody. The reward is a steady stream of money and happy teammates.
Be a cheapskate
Not much to this one: Buy the cheapest guns, fill them with the cheapest ammo, paper-thin armor, and go get a kill. It’s not the most exciting playstyle, but it can be if you treat it like a free loadout in an extraction shooter. Get a kill, loot that enemy corpse, and steal all of their better gear. Saving money while making money.
Play the Hot Zone
If you hadn’t already noticed, you passively earn money for simply standing in the Hot Zone—hundreds of dollars by the minute, actually. You don’t even have to shoot anyone, but you will earn extra for killing and assisting in the Hot Zone. If you want to get in the action, there’s no better place to be.