Wardogs Has a Major Discrimination Problem

Wardogs, the breakout first-person shooter dominating Steam charts after shifting over 2 million units in less than a week, is currently grappling with an unexpected community crisis: an absolute aversion to the color blue.

Matches in Wardogs accommodate up to 100 players divided across three factions. (While developer Bulkhead acknowledges that this figure doesn’t divide cleanly into a trio of equal squads, they simply do not mind.) Upon entering a match, participants choose their faction: blue, red, or green. Unfortunately, distinct cultural stereotypes have crystallized around each hue within days, severely impacting overall gameplay quality.

The blue squad—officially designated as Lonestar—has been universally branded by the player base as the refuge for novices and underperforming gamers. Consequently, the blue team practically never secures a victory, and matches occasionally stall entirely because nobody is willing to enlist. Rather than enduring a doomed full match on blue, participants prefer to linger on the lobby screen, furiously spamming their mouse buttons to secure a spot on red or green instead.

Naturally, the other colors carry their own reputations. Red (Valkyra) is perceived as the most aggressive faction, typically housing chatty squads focused entirely on relentless infantry skirmishes rather than capturing objectives. Consequently, red combatants frequently dominate individual leaderboards while consistently losing matches, given that control points are awarded for zone presence rather than sheer kill counts.

Conversely, Green (Manticore) attracts tacticians who leverage Wardogs‘ intricate mechanics. Green loyalists systematically capture map towers, establish Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), and deploy mortar fire, tracking the double-point hot zones across the map with disciplined infantry units. Unfortunately, since the game offers minimal incentives for actual match victories, pursuing individual supremacy on the red team yields greater personal financial rewards through the game’s cross-match progression economy.

This phenomenon has escalated into a widespread community meme. Consider the viral clip above, shared on X by Bulkhead’s community manager, which perfectly encapsulates the blue team experience: a desperate blue infantryman attempts to hail a transport pilot. The initial helicopter crashes immediately, shattering its rotors; the second departs prematurely before the player can board. A third lands erratically, and when the player finally secures a passenger seat in a fourth chopper, the pilot attempts an immobile barrel roll, destroying the craft and nearly killing everyone on board. Another helicopter immediately takes off directly into a friendly aircraft, obliterating it instantly. Evidently, basic aviation skills are entirely optional on the blue squad.

While this is an extreme illustration, spending a couple of matches in Wardogs is enough to validate the stereotype firsthand. Spending a weekend restricted to the blue team—simply because it was the only faction with vacant slots—resulted in continuous, one-sided routs. One particularly grim match concluded with a green victory where neither red nor blue managed to score a single point. Shifting allegiance to alternate factions immediately restored the fun, providing genuine squad coordination rather than a lonely solo struggle.

The developers are fully clued into the situation as social media engagement surges. On launch day, Reddit user f2ame5 noted, “me and the boys said we will only go blue to turn things around. I’m losing my mind after one day.” The community has even resorted to earnest motivational speeches in a desperate bid to salvage the team’s reputation.

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Unfortunately, as the blue team is increasingly memed, it triggers a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wardogs remains a phenomenal release, but this prevailing anti-blue mindset saps the fun, especially when it hinders matches from launching properly. Mitigating the issue requires quelling the viral jokes—a difficult ask when community highlights are as brilliantly funny as this one.

Enforcing randomized team assignments would offer a swift technical remedy, though doing so requires implementing a functional party system first. Currently, players wishing to squad up with friends must manually hunt down identical servers via the browser and hope for multiple vacant slots on a single side. While this represents a glaring structural oversight, mandatory auto-assignment would instantly eradicate the blue team bias.

Beyond social stigma, layout design may also be sabotaging the blue faction. While map spawns are ostensibly balanced, blue’s spawn zone sits uncomfortably sandwiched between red and green territory. Furthermore, blue uniforms boast higher contrast than rival factions, making personnel marginally easier to spot and stripping them of natural cover.

Psychological factors likely play a role too: does blue instinctively read as a novice hue compared to red or green? Because it occupies the top slot on the selection menu, unobservant newcomers default to clicking it immediately, unintentionally dragging down the squad’s collective skill tier. Regardless of the root cause, it remains an annoying blemish on an otherwise stellar tactical shooter.

Wardogs developer Bulkhead is having a refreshingly honest conversation with PC gamers

Source: Polygon