Bulkhead has removed Wardogs from Steam Family Sharing, cutting off a route the studio says banned players were using to get back into matches. PCGamesN reports that the change was made on Friday, September 18, and was picked up by the tracking site SteamDB.
Family Sharing is a Valve programme that lets close family members play a single copy of a game one of them owns, though not at the same time. With Wardogs excluded, a player who owns the multiplayer shooter can no longer pass access to a household member.
A number of accounts were exploiting Steam Family Sharing to bypass bans, explicitly to cheat and impact legitimate matches. We’ve disabled the feature to help protect legitimate players. Thank you for your reports. They help us uphold the integrity of the game.
The studio’s chief executive and executive producer, Joe Brammer, has previously framed the game’s price as a deterrent of its own, writing on X that “the $40 price tag is the best anti-cheat”.
PCGamesN notes that other competitive games have taken narrower measures. ARC Raiders applies restrictions across every account that shares a Steam Family with a banned user, so a banned licence owner can no longer share the game. The outlet says it is possible Bulkhead is working towards a similar system, but that the studio has given no indication Family Sharing is planned to return.
Bulkhead braces for a turn in sentiment
Wardogs has had a strong opening on Steam, and PCGamesN reports that Bulkhead has said it does not expect that early high to last. Brammer has been active on social media since launch, responding to feedback and to player clips, and has called for “real talk and feedback time”.
The sentiment around Wardogs is preparing to go more negative as people begin to criticize its shortcomings or quirks that people find.
Brammer has also described Wardogs Season 2, which PCGamesN reports is due about a month after launch. He said Bulkhead does not treat a seasonal reset as starting over, and that each season changes the progression and metagame, adds weapons and vehicles, and can remove content to keep the mix varied.
