WARDOGS Is Going to War Against Cheaters Before Early Access

WARDOGS is preparing to unleash hundreds of players onto the battlefield, but Bulkhead Interactive has another enemy to deal with before the shooting really gets going: cheaters. In the studio's latest developer video, the team has revealed its plans to tackle one of multiplayer gaming's most persistent headaches. For a game that is built around huge-scale FPS battles, keeping the playing field fair is hardly a minor detail. When dozens of players are fighting for survival, discovering that someone on the other side is quietly running cheats can turn an exciting firefight into a very fast trip to the rage-quit menu. Bulkhead clearly understands that, which is why anti-cheat has become one of the topics the studio is addressing ahead of WARDOGS' Early Access launch.

A multi-layered approach

Rather than presenting anti-cheat as some magical shield that will make hackers disappear forever, the developers are approaching the problem as an ongoing battle. Cheats evolve, cheat makers adapt and new exploits inevitably appear. As a result, Bulkhead's strategy involves monitoring player behaviour, gathering information from matches and using that data to improve its ability to identify suspicious activity.

That makes the game's testing phases particularly valuable. WARDOGS' beta sessions have not only given the studio an opportunity to see how its servers cope with enormous crowds, but have also provided a real-world laboratory for identifying problems that could otherwise become much nastier after launch. And with the game already attracting a huge audience, there has been no shortage of activity for the developers to analyse.

The community will also have an important role to play. Automated detection can process an enormous amount of information, but players and server administrators can sometimes spot questionable behaviour that deserves a closer look. Giving communities tools to manage their own spaces could therefore provide another layer of protection against those who decide that winning legitimately is simply too much work.

Bulkhead has absolutely zero tolerance for cheaters, and the studio promises to permantently ban whoever gets caught red-handed. Not only the current account of the cheater will get banned for life, but also any future interactions from that player that may be detected. Also, whoever is detected to be associated with a cheater could be forced to run the game with secure boot enabled. 

Such harsh approack to tackling cheaters may not be popular among some players, but it will definitely pay it off in the long run. This is particularly important for WARDOGS because of the sheer scale of its battles. In a traditional small multiplayer match, one cheater can ruin the evening for a handful of players. In WARDOGS, a single hacker could potentially make an entire lobby miserable. When the battlefield contains a small army of players, one bad actor can cause a surprisingly large explosion of frustration.

Why talking about this now?

Interestingly, the developers' decision to talk about cheating before Early Access is arguably just as important as the technology itself. Players do not expect any multiplayer shooter to become completely immune to cheaters. That would be about as realistic as expecting every online lobby to remain friendly after someone steals the last kill. What players do expect is communication and action, and that's exactly what Bulkhead has been doing so far. They want to know that reports are being investigated, that suspicious behaviour is being monitored and that players caught deliberately breaking the rules will not simply be allowed to carry on ruining matches.

WARDOGS has already cleared one enormous hurdle by generating serious interest ahead of launch. Its betas attracted huge numbers of players, giving Bulkhead both an impressive audience and an enormous amount of data to work with. Now the studio has to turn that hype into a sustainable multiplayer community, and that means keeping the battlefield fun for the people who actually want to play by the rules.

The fight against cheaters is a race that will continue throughout WARDOGS' life. However, Bulkhead's latest developer video suggests that the studio is going into Early Access with the problem firmly on its radar rather than waiting for the hacker invasion to arrive at the gates.

With WARDOGS about to open its doors, the bullets are ready, the servers are warming up and thousands of players are preparing to charge onto the battlefield. Now, all you need to do is use our comparator to get your copy of WARDOGS at the lowest price and join the fight.