Look, let's be honest—military sandbox FPS WARDOGS, which had already generated plenty of buzz during its tests, blasted past 340,000 Concurrent Players on Steam right after launch. However, a massive wave of players flooding in at once triggered severe server issues, unleashing a torrent of harsh reviews.

WARDOGS lets up to 100 players split into three factions to capture strongpoints. It blends the large-scale combat of the Battlefield series with an economic management system where you contribute to the team to earn funds, plus building elements allowing you to erect outposts. During its closed beta prior to launch, the developer recorded a peak of 245,000 Concurrent Players, and that momentum pushed the number up to 340,000 following this release.

Still, opening day saw heavy traffic, triggering massive queues and server crashes. The developer scrambled to expand servers and roll out stabilization patches to contain the situation, but throttling player entry for stability ended up spawning hundreds of thousands more in queues once again. Having opened at midnight on September 11, the game took quite a while to sort out the mess.

Consequently, Steam user reviews currently sit at Mixed (with 22,635 reviews and 64% positive). Reviewers pointed out that even after finishing the queue, connection errors kept shoving players right back to the very end of the line, while a separate controversy flared up over claims that certain streamers were granted queue-bypass privileges. Frustrations only grew as refund windows lapsed and frequent crashes piled on. That said, plenty of positive reactions highlight the core gameplay, such as combat, roles, and the economic system, meaning how fast the developer nails server stability will dictate whether those scores climb.

Meanwhile, developer Bulkhead announced that cumulative sales for WARDOGS have surpassed 1.25 million copies. The developer plans to roll out continuous updates over roughly two years leading up to the official launch, focusing on maintaining server stability, adding fresh content, and optimizing the client.

Elsewhere, Borderlands 4 claimed the 4th spot by launching a new story DLC alongside a base game discount and a free-play weekend. No Man's Sky climbed to 7th after updating with its 10th-anniversary content, Cosmos.

In the peak daily Concurrent Players top 20, Valheim hit 190,713, keeping its momentum going ahead of the weekend. PUBG, which updated with a collaboration content featuring Jujutsu Kaisen, surged to 783,417, jumping by about 100,000 compared to the previous day.