Are there cheaters in WARDOGS?

A chopper pilot one-shot our building, killed a couple of us, then flew straight into the ground and killed himself. That happened several times in one night, by the same pilot. That's where this one starts.

Are there cheaters in WARDOGS?

Yes. PapaKow ran into two clear-cut cases on the OCE servers over the nights leading into Tuesday 29 September 2026 — a chopper pilot doing things a chopper shouldn't be able to do, and a player self-reviving in a game that has no self-revive. How many cheaters are actually in the player base is not measured, and I'm not going to pretend I know. I'd like to think the percentage is lower than what we're all thinking.

The night's connection, for the record: 19 ms from Brisbane on OCE Server #96, and 19 ms again on OCE Server #7 on Tuesday 29 September 2026. One night, one connection, not a benchmark.

What does cheating look like in WARDOGS?

The two I'd put money on:

• The chopper pilot. Missiles one-shotting a building, players dead, and then he instantly crashes into the ground. Several times in the one night. The kills land in his name and the evidence goes up in a fireball. He gets his kills, and me crashing into the ground and killing myself — how does that happen? That's very weird gameplay.
• The self-revive. We called self-res out loud, then we all went, wait a minute, there is no self-res in this game. It took the whole squad by surprise, which was hilarious. Once we were all talking to him in-game about it, he just gave up.

That's it. That's the honest list. Two things I saw with my own eyes.

How do you tell a cheater from a player who is just better than you?

Mostly, you can't — and this is the part where I'll be honest about my own week. Since Monday 28 September 2026 I've had a run of very suspect moments. Players seeming to know exactly where I am. Fights I used to be able to approach that just haven't been going my way.

But spotter scopes are in this game. If I've been spotted and called out, that is not a cheater, that is a team doing its job. I can't pinpoint it, so I'm not going to accuse anybody over a feeling. Some of it is me having a rough couple of nights.

Is Bulkhead doing anything about the cheaters?

By their own account, yes, and they're not hiding from it. When WARDOGS passed 3 million sales in late September 2026, studio head Joe Brammer was quoted in the press describing a team overwhelmed by cheaters and constant DDoS attacks — that's their words, not mine, and I'd rather have a studio saying that out loud than one pretending everything is fine.

I also read an X post from Brammer about a meeting where he talked about AI doing a lot of the heavy lifting on gathering data across their games, pulling it from players and streamers and checking whether the feedback matches what the data says. That's my read of his post, not something Bulkhead has spelled out as an anti-cheat plan. But if the data is that good, a chopper pilot who kills himself immediately after every multi-kill should be the easiest pattern in the world to find.

So is WARDOGS ruined?

No. The core of this game is still there, and it's still the best thing I'm playing. It's early access, players are finding the loopholes, and there are a lot of moving parts that still need to be well-oiled. I'd rather flag what I saw, with the dates on it, than sit on it.

I'll be on OCE through the rest of the week and I'll keep logging this the same way — what I saw, what night, what server, and what I can't prove. If you're seeing the same pilot trick, say so in The Clutch Club Discord.

You gotta stay gaming.