The WARDOGS controls menu shows one layer of bindings. Underneath it there is a second layer the menu never lists, and rebinding the wrong key breaks something you cannot see: the mortar stops reloading, ladders stop working, an armed helicopter fires when you meant to climb.
This page is that second layer — what breaks, which keys to leave alone, and how to get a broken layout back. If your problem is simpler and a binding just will not save, that has its own fix at keybindings not saving.
At a glance
| Leave this alone | What breaks if you change it | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Reload on R | Vehicles and mortars stop reloading | Reported |
| Left Shift | Sliding down and jumping off ladders | Reported |
| Space | Fires armed helicopters; can overwrite Deploy Parachute | Reported |
| Right mouse | Vehicle aiming stays on the original button | Unconfirmed |
None of this is in the patch notes, and Bulkhead has not published a key list or acknowledged any of it. Every row comes from players describing what happened to them, which is why the whole page is labelled reported — but the reload and ladder faults have several independent reports behind them, and they match exactly.
Do not rebind reload
The one to know before anything else. Move Reload off R — or bind R to something else — and manual reloading breaks for vehicles and mortars. Pressing the new key does nothing. Pressing R does nothing. The vehicle or the tube simply refuses to take ammunition.
Verifying your files will not fix it and neither will reinstalling, because the fault is in your custom keybind configuration rather than in the game's files. What does fix it is removing the custom binding, and players report the Stingray drone launcher breaks the same way.
This matters more than it looks, because the players most likely to rebind reload are the ones on the tube. If you have moved it and your mortar has stopped working, that is why — the artillery guide assumes a reload that works.
Leave Left Shift, right mouse and Space alone
Three inputs appear to carry functions that are hard-coded rather than bound, and they break in the same way: bind something else to them and the original, invisible job stops working properly, even after you unbind it again.
Left Shift runs your ladders. Players who moved Sprint to Caps Lock, or bound Left Shift to another action, report they can no longer slide down ladders or jump off them — which turns every ladder into a slow climb under fire.
Space has a hidden helicopter weapon function. It cannot be removed from the keybindings menu, so if you assign Space to pitch or collective, it can still fire an armed helicopter's guns. Rebinding Space can also overwrite Deploy Parachute, and that is worth checking before you jump with an expensive loadout.
Right mouse is the least certain of the three. One player reports that vehicle aiming stays on the original button whatever you rebind it to. It fits the pattern; it has one report behind it.
One key, one job
WARDOGS treats custom bindings as globally exclusive. Assign a key to one action and it is silently removed from any other action that had it — including across infantry and vehicles, where you would expect the same key to do different jobs.
The default layout does share keys between situations. Your own bindings cannot. So after changing helicopter controls in particular, go back through your infantry binds and check the ones most often stripped: Move Forward, Move Back, Sprint, Focus / Hold Breath, Jump, Deploy Parachute and Fire.
How to unbind a key, and how to reset
To clear a binding: Settings → Controls → Keybindings, select the key on the action and press Delete (labelled Supr on some keyboards). You do not need to put an unused key in its place.
To reset a layout that has broken, the file is here:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Wardogs\Saved\Config\WindowsClient\GameUserSettings.iniClose the game completely first, and back the file up. The game only writes the bindings you have changed into it, rather than a full map, so removing your custom binding lines — or the file itself, which also resets your graphics and audio settings — puts everything back to default. Players report that editing the hard-coded functions by hand does nothing: the game ignores it. Reset, then rebind only what you need, avoiding the keys above.
Helicopter controls live in two menus
Mouse flight is not in Keybindings, which is why people cannot find it. It is under Settings → Controls → Settings:
- Rotary Vehicle Mouse Control on, then set the mouse swipes to pitch and roll.
- Invert Y Axis – Air Vehicle is separate from Invert Y Axis – Infantry. Invert the air one for nose-up on a pulled-back mouse. Leaving the infantry one on is what reverses your roll.
- Left Alt is free look: hold it to look around, double-tap to toggle. If mouse pitch stops responding, you are probably still in free look — and Freelook on by Default should be off.
- Flight Assists is a master switch over the individual assists beneath it.
The full layout, from hover to landing, is in how to fly helicopters.
Keys that do more than one thing
Several default keys change job with context, and knowing it saves you pressing the wrong one at the wrong moment:
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| C | Crouch; consolidates ammunition into magazines from the top-left; drops a tank commander into the ring |
| F | Interact; hold on the prompt to reposition a flipped or stuck vehicle |
| B | Opens a vehicle's buy menu at base |
| G | Kicks a supply crate out of a vehicle |
| R | Reload; swaps a fresh battery into a drill |
| U | Pressed twice on the scoreboard, the reported fix for voice chat that will not work |
The C one catches people out: press it with ammunition in your inventory and it reshuffles rounds between magazines. The tips guide has how to pack your magazines so that helps rather than hurts.
What nobody has confirmed
- The full Season 1 default layout. No official key list exists, and the lists circulating predate launch and contradict each other.
- Whether Patch 0.11 changed any default. Its notes do not mention controls.
- Whether Bulkhead is fixing the hard-coded bindings, or whether they are intended.
- Controller rebinding, which WARDOGS still does not offer in game — the best controller guide covers what that means for which pad to buy.
If you have confirmed any of this in the settings menu, send it over. Until then: leave reload on R, keep Left Shift, right mouse and Space to themselves, and check your infantry binds after touching a helicopter.
