WARDOGS servers are getting a 175 maximum ping, and region locking is on the way. Bulkhead announced on @WARDOGS at 19:07 UTC on 21 October that the cap would roll out "over the next few hours", to protect the largest group of players "from an influx of regions that are more prone to cheating" (Confirmed).
What is changing?
Two things, on two timelines (Confirmed):
| Change | Status on 21 October |
|---|---|
| 175 maximum ping on a server | Rolling out "over the next few hours" |
| Region locking | "In progress on the backend", no date |
Bulkhead warns that region locking "is more than a switch". It also says it will be "getting stricter on cross pollination of regions", so the ping cap looks like the first step rather than the whole fix.
Why is Bulkhead doing it?
Cheating. The studio says it let players from every region mix because it "felt that giving certain regions the opportunity to prevail was the right move", and that "it has not panned out as we'd hoped". It apologised for letting it "get to this point" and called the split disappointing for a game built around its social side (Confirmed).
It is a turnaround inside eight days. On 13 October Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer told a player on X that the studio was not "going to apply region locking just yet" and would enforce ping limits instead, which he said "won't fully fix" the problem, as quoted by games.gg (Reported). The ping limit is now here, and so is the region lock he held back.
Cheating is not the only pressure. WARDOGS' 30-day player average is down 22% on September, and recent Steam reviews are Mixed. The player numbers →
What does Bulkhead not say?
Which regions. The post names none, and we will not guess. It also gives no date for region locking, does not say whether a player over 175 is refused at the door or removed mid-match, and says nothing on VPNs or on squads that play together across continents.
What it means for you
If you play on a server near you, probably nothing beyond, if it works, fewer cheaters. If you regularly play on a far-away server, with friends abroad or because your nearest servers are quiet, expect to lose access to some of them once your ping is over 175.
Our read is that the next few days will bring join failures and thinner server lists for players at the edges. If you hit one, check failed when joining a server and no servers in the browser before assuming an outage, and see server status for whether the game itself is down.
The post says nothing new about bans. What gets you banned →