The WARDOGS ban wave hit 185,000 accounts for cheating on 6 November, and if you think yours was a mistake, you can appeal through the WARDOGS Support bot. The bot is on the official WARDOGS Discord. I’ve run into loads of obvious cheaters, so I’m glad it finally happened.
Key takeaways
- BULKHEAD banned 185,000 WARDOGS accounts after analysing 187 million hours of gameplay with machine learning and AI.
- Any outside software that touches the game counts, including aim aids, recoil aids and fire-rate tools, and players who bought VIP slots on boosting servers got permanent bans.
- Appeals go to the WARDOGS Support bot: send it a direct message from the official WARDOGS Discord and it walks you through the process.
- More waves are coming. BULKHEAD says cheaters will keep getting reported, flagged and banned in waves.
How many accounts did WARDOGS ban?
BULKHEAD banned 185,000 accounts in the Road to Season 03 devlog, and the bans went out as the video went live. The studio says it analysed 187 million hours of gameplay with the help of machine learning and AI before switching on the extra anti-cheat layers.
It also says it held back on purpose. Cheaters were left alone while they tuned their cheats so the models could learn from them, and BULKHEAD only planned to switch the system on next year. Nearly 4 million players since launch changed that. BULKHEAD also apologised that players had to put up with what felt like basic anti-cheat while it couldn’t say what it was doing.
What counts as cheating in WARDOGS?
Cheating in WARDOGS is any outside software that interacts with the game in a way BULKHEAD doesn’t officially support. The devlog names aim aids, recoil aids and fire-rate manipulation, and says all of them count as cheating if you’re using them now or used them in the past.
That’s why some banned players say they did nothing wrong. A recoil tool that runs alongside the game, rather than a full cheat menu, still falls under that rule. If a program changes how you aim, how your gun kicks or how fast it fires, treat it as bannable.
The wave also went after the economy. BULKHEAD says it spent the first two seasons gathering data on exploiters, real-money traders and gold farmers, then got into their boosting servers, wiped their cash and XP and banned everyone there. Those players also lost the ability to host servers, and they can’t get a refund on the game. BULKHEAD says the money they paid for WARDOGS has gone straight back into development.
Does buying a VIP slot on a boosting server get you banned?
Yes. BULKHEAD told everyone who bought VIP slots on those servers that they’d bought themselves a permanent ban. It says it can now see who connected to those networks and who they’re friends with. It plans to watch those players more closely from now on.
I think that’s fair. You obviously knew why you were on a boosting server. And the people running those servers deserve the same, which BULKHEAD says is what they got.
Is 4.89% of WARDOGS players really cheating?
BULKHEAD puts it at 4.89% of players worldwide using some kind of external modification, and 5.7% of copies sold in Europe flagged as cheating. It says other studios told it that figure isn’t even that bad. The devlog also showed a map of where flagged cheaters were before the wave, then what was left once the bans landed.
That feels too low to me, though I don’t know. I suppose a server holds 100 people, and it’s normally just one cheater at a time. I very rarely meet more than one in a game, almost like they take it in turns. My brother Gaspode had over 300 hours in WARDOGS and uninstalled it in October because of how many cheaters he was meeting.
How do you appeal a WARDOGS ban?
You appeal through the WARDOGS Support bot. Here’s the route:
- Join the official WARDOGS Discord.
- Open the #support channel and find its instructions for game ban appeals.
- Send a direct message to @WARDOGS Support.
- Answer the bot’s questions. The channel’s own instructions say it walks you through the process from there.
BULKHEAD’s devlog doesn’t mention appeals at all, and it warns that plenty of banned players will claim they did nothing wrong. So be specific about when it happened and what you were doing, and be honest about any other software you had running. The channel’s instructions cover game ban appeals in general, so the same bot is where to start whatever the ban was for.
Would I trust an AI-flagged ban?
No. I wouldn’t trust AI to do anything. WARDOGS has already got one big ban wrong: streamer summit1g was banned live on stream in September, and BULKHEAD reversed it, saying the wrong player had been picked during manual review.
So if you really didn’t cheat, appeal. But to be clear, if you get banned in a video game for cheating, it’s because you’re a loser. I don’t know anyone who got caught in this wave, and I don’t associate with people who would be.
How do you report a cheater in WARDOGS?
Report the cheater in game. That’s it. There’s no point switching server, because you’ll just find a different cheater there. Report them, and hope it was obvious enough that everyone else in the match reports too. BULKHEAD treats your reports as the first step in the cycle that ends in a ban wave.
Reports are weighted. BULKHEAD’s Season 1 changelog added weighting so repeat and bad-faith reporters count for less, which means one honest report counts for more than a pile of bad-faith ones. The same update made cheater bans show up in the server when match termination is turned off. On 14 October, about 225 hours in, I got one I’d never seen before: “A player from this server has been permanently banned for cheating.”
Will WARDOGS ban more cheaters?
Yes. BULKHEAD says you will definitely see other cheaters, and that unless governments start criminalising cheat development, this is the cycle: they cheat, you report, they get flagged and banned in waves.
It’s also bracing for a backlash. The studio expects to be review bombed by the accounts it banned, because some of them told it so when it took their cash. It has asked legitimate players to help. On top of that, BULKHEAD says a player trust score that gives players more control is coming next year.
What changes in Season 3?
Season 3 lands on 12 November with the new urban map Sabatulo, longer seasons and Limited Mode, and our Season 3 news covers the rest. Region locks and ping limits are covered in our region lock piece.
FAQ
How many accounts were banned in the WARDOGS ban wave? 185,000, starting on 6 November 2026, after 187 million hours of gameplay were analysed with machine learning and AI.
Are WARDOGS ban wave bans permanent? BULKHEAD called the VIP-slot buyers’ bans permanent. It hasn’t said how long the other ban wave bans last.
Can you get unbanned in WARDOGS? Only through an appeal to the WARDOGS Support bot on the official Discord, and BULKHEAD has reversed at least one wrong ban.
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