Wardogs is a military FPS where you buy every gun, magazine, helmet, and vest yourself, much like Battlefield. Your own personal wallet pays for permanent upgrades and temporary gear alike, while doing useful things for your team fills it with cash. Early on, however, keeping that wallet full can be difficult.
Morgan, a staff writer for PC Gamer, has logged dozens of hours in closed beta tests and compiled a guide to earning money quickly in Wardogs. The game allows players to choose any role and still make a profit, though not all of the most profitable playstyles are immediately apparent. Here is what he discovered. Each method described below lists its starting cost and the earnings it generated during the beta.
The economy during the beta stage will not carry over to the early access release, according to Bulkhead. Some figures may shift at launch. Morgan has promised to update the numbers once they are known.
Spotting with Binoculars
The safest and most efficient way to make money from minute one is a $75 pair of binoculars. They let you spot enemy soldiers, vehicles, and structures, temporarily marking them on the map and in-world for your team.
Every time you land a hit on a target, you receive a small cash prize right away. If a teammate then finishes off that same player, you earn an assist that pays hundreds instead. The system rewards teamwork without forcing anyone to put their whole setup at risk before they fully grasp how the game plays.
“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,” Morgan wrote.
Building a FOB
One secure, rewarding approach is to pick up a hammer, purchase a FOB module, and construct a base in a strategically useful position. By default, the spawn’s nearest tower serves as the starting point for a team’s FOB.
Tell your heli pilot to stock up on FOB supplies, or handle it yourself, then set off for a tower. Once there, position the FOB and construct it by pressing LMB with your hammer, tapping the yellow X’s to speed things along. Guard the site with walls, gates, and Hesco blocks built from your supplies.
A swing of the hammer that lands pays, $15 in the beta. Finishing a build can return more than taking down an enemy: $1,200 to $1,500.
Reviving Teammates
While still earning a living, Morgan opts for revives and healing as his preferred, non-lethal means of making money while remaining engaged in the fight. Teammates brought back from the brink are worth $900 in the beta, and the service requires no purchase of extra gear at all.
Revive speed starts out frustratingly slow, and resuscitators exist to fix that. They are single-use items that cost little at early stages. Morgan’s approach involves purchasing the largest backpack possible, stuffing it with resuscitators and bandages, then trailing behind teammates in the backline to swiftly bring anyone back from being down for $900. The tactic also brings in additional assist cash whenever those revived players go on to score kills, while healing with bandages generates $200 a pop.
Morgan spent his beta weekends acquiring experience until he hit Medic level 11, which opened up the defibrillator. These revival tools demand a bigger initial cost at $1,600, along with $150 batteries, yet they remain the fastest method for bringing downed teammates back into the fight. Every single battery holds enough charge for five revives.
Driving the Spawn Vehicle
Only one person can do this job at a time, so it won’t always work, but driving your team’s spawn vehicle from HQ to the zone is a fast gig that pays royalties. The spawn vehicle is the APC with a satellite dish on top.
Park the APC at a Forward Operating Base, then let teammates spawn from it again and again. Each time they do, more money rolls in, and the cash keeps growing until there are no more players left to use it.
Being a Taxi
When the spawn APC is not available, the next best route to the zone is to take a taxi. To make money as a virtual driver, you can fly a helicopter at the firing range before shuttling passengers between locations.
Dropping passengers into the zone pays out cash directly. Nice people tip, and you earn assist cash when they go on to land kills.
“You have to be in the mood to do this job well,” Morgan wrote. Helicopters are not cheap for a new player, and you have to be good enough to not crash or get blasted out of the sky by an RPG. You are also essentially ignoring the shooting part of this shooter, which will not appeal to everybody. The reward is a steady stream of money and happy teammates.
Playing Cheap
One straightforward approach involves purchasing the least expensive firearms, loading them with the lowest-cost ammunition, wearing minimal protection, and then securing a kill. This method lacks excitement.
In a game where you can strip down slain foes for their equipment, the trick is to treat every death as a chance to plunder. After a kill, rifle through the fallen body for anything worth keeping. The best items get taken, and you walk away with a haul that both saves you cash and earns you more.
Standing in the Hot Zone
The Hot Zone pays you while you stand still — hundreds of dollars per minute, without lifting a finger. You need not kill anyone to collect, though you gain more cash for every kill and assist inside it. The zone rewards your presence alone, combining passive income with bonuses for combat contributions.
There is no finer spot to join the action, if that is what you desire.
The guide presents a table that brings together every strategy, its starting cost, and its beta earnings into a single view for easy comparison.
| Strategy | Cost to Start | Cash Earned (Beta) |
|---|---|---|
| Spotting with binoculars | $75 | Small prize per spot, hundreds per assist |
| Building a FOB | Hammer + FOB module | $15 per hammer swing, $1,200–$1,500 per build |
| Reviving teammates | Free (basic), $1,600 for defib | $900 per revive, $200 per heal |
| Driving spawn APC | None | Royalties per teammate use |
| Helicopter taxi | Helicopter cost | Direct cash, tips, assist cash |
| Cheap loadout + loot | Cheapest gun and ammo | Kill rewards, looted gear |
| Standing in Hot Zone | None | Hundreds per minute |
PC Gamer hired Morgan as a staff writer after he initially contributed to the publication as a freelancer starting in 2018. He has additionally written for Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN.
This guide is dated, and the economy has already shifted since it was written. For the moment, though, the quickest way to earn money is through a handful of methods: using binoculars to spot enemies, constructing a Forward Operating Base with a hammer, reviving fallen teammates, healing them back to health, driving the spawn APC, flying a helicopter taxi, fielding the cheapest possible gear, or simply waiting inside the Hot Zone.
Source: pcgamer.com
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