Bulkhead has suddenly turned off Wardogs Steam Family Sharing, amid discussions around cheating countermeasures in the multiplayer FPS.
Wardogs has become a truly dominant force on Steam in just its first week, and while developer Bulkhead has expressed its belief that this early high won't last, the new large-scale shooter has already established its place among the multiplayer games of note. If you were planning to let your family members jump on and give it a try, however, you'll now be restricted from doing so, as the Wardogs team has suddenly dropped support to let others play through Steam Family Sharing.
The switch was flipped on Friday September 18, with tracking site SteamDB reporting the change to exclude Wardogs from the Steam Family Sharing program. This Valve initiative lets multiple "close family members" play a single copy of a game that one of them owns (although not at the same time). It's ideal for situations where you might, for example, want to convince your sibling to join you on the new FPS game you're enjoying - they can jump in and try it for a bit, then buy an extra copy later if you decide you want to squad up.
Explaining the decision, Bulkhead writes, "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." Studio CEO and Executive Producer Joe Brammer has previously commented on X that "The $40 price tag is the best anti-cheat."
Other competitive games have limited Family Sharing for accounts that are hit with bans - Arc Raiders, for example, applies restrictions to all accounts that the infringing user shares a Steam Family with. Once the license owner has been banned, the game can no longer be shared. It's possible that Bulkhead is working on implementing such a system, but the studio has given no indication that Family Sharing is planned to return in the future.
Elsewhere, Brammer, who has been engaging heavily with the community on social media to take in feedback and respond to impressive plays, has called for "real talk and feedback time." He notes, "The sentiment around Wardogs is preparing to go more negative as people begin to criticize its shortcomings or quirks that people find." He adds that some might tell the devs to "stop tweeting and go fix your game," but asks players how they feel the studio's overall communication has been thus far.
Brammer has also been teasing Wardogs Season 2, which is due to roll out "about a month after launch." He explains that Bulkhead doesn't think of each seasonal reset as 'starting over,' but a way to ensure the progression and metagame stays fresh. "Each season we change it up a little bit and make it a bit different, on top of adding in new content such as weapons and vehicles. We also remove content potentially, just to allow a bit of diversity each season."
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/wardogs/steam-family-sharing-disabled
