WARDOGS, from developer BULKHEAD and publisher Team17, entered Steam Early Access on September 10, 2026. Its armory mixes real names, military and commercial, with names the developers made up. This note maps it to real steel: the civilian-market counterpart of each weapon we could document, what that counterpart is called, and which ones you can configure in 3D in Gear Guy.
Before launch the studio said WARDOGS would ship with 37 weapons, as AltChar reported. The lists published since launch, including the community wiki's weapons category (last edited September 20, 2026), name 34. This edition maps 20 of them.
HOW TO READ THIS
Some weapons carry a real name: the game's M4 is an M4 and its FAL is a FAL. Others carry an invented name. For those we use the item identifiers reported by the unofficial fan database wardo.gs (game build Live-CL-501228), which lists an item ID for each weapon. The in-game GGX 17, for example, is listed as Glock17. Where a match rests on that kind of evidence we say so and call it the closest real-world match. These are editorial inferences, not confirmations from the developers, and we do not claim to know what the developers intended.
Scope. This guide compares the game's weapons with civilian-market counterparts, including discontinued models that may appear on the used market. It is not a stock check or a statement that a particular firearm is lawful for every reader. Where a game weapon is select-fire, we name a semi-automatic counterpart when one is documented. Availability and legal requirements depend on the model, configuration, buyer and jurisdiction. Nothing here is legal advice.
REAL NAMES, REAL STEEL
These in-game weapons use a real name. The third column is a civilian-market version, named as its maker names it where one is still made.
| In WARDOGS | The real design | Civilian version | In Gear Guy |
|---|---|---|---|
| M4 | Colt M4 carbine (select-fire) | Semi-auto M4-pattern carbines, e.g. Colt Carbine CR6920 | Yes: AR-15, M4 pattern |
| AK74 | AK-74 (5.45×39) | Semi-auto AK-74-pattern rifles, e.g. Palmetto State Armory PSAK-74 | Yes: AK-74 (on the AK-103 model) |
| M1911 | M1911 / M1911A1 (.45 ACP) | GI-pattern 1911s, e.g. Springfield Armory 1911 Mil-Spec, Auto-Ordnance 1911A1 | Yes: GI-pattern 1911 |
| FAL | FN FAL (7.62×51) | DS Arms SA58 FAL | — |
| Galil | IMI Galil (5.56) | IWI US Galil ACE Gen II, a modernized relative | — |
| M249 SAW | FN M249 (belt-fed 5.56) | FN M249S, a semi-auto version | — |
| MK22 | US Mk 22, built on Barrett's MRAD | Barrett MRAD (bolt action; .308 Win among its calibers) | — |
| SKS | Simonov SKS (7.62×39) | Surplus or used-market examples; condition and availability vary | — |
| Mosin Nagant | Mosin-Nagant (7.62×54R) | Surplus or used-market examples; condition and availability vary | — |
| Bushmaster M17S | Bushmaster M17S (5.56 bullpup) | Original Bushmaster M17S: discontinued; used-market examples | — |
| MP5 | HK MP5 (9mm, select-fire) | HK SP5 semi-auto pistol; the SP5K-PDW is the shorter MP5K-pattern model | — |
| Deagle | Desert Eagle (.50 AE) | Magnum Research Desert Eagle Mark XIX, .50 AE | — |
| Judge | Taurus Judge (.45 Colt / .410) | Taurus Raging Judge, a six-round Judge-family revolver | — |
| MP43 | Baikal MP-43 (12-gauge side-by-side) | Legacy Baikal MP-43 / Remington Spartan SPR220 examples; US availability varies | — |
One note on the M4: the military carbine has a 14.5-inch barrel, and on a civilian rifle a barrel under 16 inches has its own federal rules. Our AR-15 barrel length guide covers what that means before you build one.
GAME DESIGNS AND THEIR CLOSEST MATCHES
These weapons carry invented names. The evidence column comes from the unofficial fan database wardo.gs and says what each match rests on; the matches are editorial inferences.
| In WARDOGS | Evidence | Closest real-world match | In Gear Guy |
|---|---|---|---|
| GGX 17 | Item ID Glock17; a "Glock 17 Extended Magazine" in its item list | Glock 17 (now sold as the G17 V and G17 Gen6) | Yes: Glock 17 Gen5 |
| Super-45 | Item ID Vector; .45 ACP | KRISS Vector CRB or SDP Gen 3 in .45 ACP | — |
| T-21 | Item ID TAR21; 5.56×45 | IWI US Tavor SAR, which IWI calls "the US civilian version of the IDF issued select-fire bullpup" | — |
| AMP-9 | Item ID MP9; an "MP9 Extended Magazine" in its item list | B&T TP9, "the semi-automatic variant for civilian use" | — |
| BMR-308 | Item ID RFB; a .308 bullpup on FAL magazines | KelTec RFB, "designed to feed from the FN/FAL metric pattern 20-round magazine" | — |
| M500 | The name M500 and a 12-gauge pump description; a tentative match | Mossberg 500 (editorial match) | Yes: Mossberg 500 (on the 590 M-LOK model) |
The GGX 18, the fully automatic sibling of the GGX 17, is outside this guide. The AMR 50 and the Scout Rifle TD have no single real counterpart we can point to, and the Compound Bow is not a firearm.
NOT COVERED
We leave the military launchers and missiles, the 9K333 Verba, MAAWS, MGL-40 and RPG-7, outside this civilian-counterpart overview. The A-91, KH-2002 and SV98 also remain outside this edition. The PP-19 Vityaz, SVD and PKM need a separate treatment of legacy civilian counterparts and their availability; their absence here does not mean that no civilian counterpart exists.
IN GEAR GUY
Five of the real firearms above can be configured in 3D in Gear Guy today: an AR-15 in its M4 pattern, the AK-74, the GI-pattern 1911, the Glock 17 (as the Gen5) and the Mossberg 500. On the AR-15, the M4 pattern means M4-profile barrels, a USGI M4 handguard and an M4 stock. Two of them are shown on closely related 3D models and labeled that way in the app: the AK-74 on the AK-103 model, and the Mossberg 500 on the 590 M-LOK. Gear Guy checks configured parts against its compatibility rules as you build, the Armory keeps what you own in an AES-256-GCM encrypted vault on your device with no account, and a build can be shared as a link at gearguyapp.com/b/.
FINAL THOUGHTS
WARDOGS borrows heavily from real hardware. This edition maps 20 of the 34 listed game weapons to a civilian-market counterpart: fourteen that carry a real name, and six close enough to a real design to name one. Five of those twenty can be configured in 3D in Gear Guy today.
WARDOGS and related names are the property of their respective owners. Gear Guy is not affiliated with or endorsed by BULKHEAD, Team17 or any manufacturer named here, and this page uses no game art or footage.