Since release, Wardogs runs the Elytra anti-cheat, not Easy Anti-Cheat: EAC was only used in the alpha and the closed beta, and since early September 2026 the game's Steam page says "Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat Elytra". It is a Windows kernel driver that, according to the press, looks for cheat traces in memory and also keeps an eye on how you play: how your crosshair moves and how often you "track" an enemy through walls. Not every cheat works with it, and none works forever, so what matters now is how natural the software looks in a match.
Working builds with undetected status, prices and window modes are listed on our Wardogs cheats page. Everything below was tested on the client after Patch 0.11 (September 12), on Bakurani and Ozeti, on both official and community servers. We also checked how different configs behave in a match where Elytra is active and human moderators back it up.
How Easy Anti-Cheat was replaced by Elytra
The switch happened quietly. During the closed beta on August 21-23 players still hit the EAC error "Untrusted system file (coreinit.dll)", and by the September 2 playtest the game files already contained an Elytra\Elytra-Setup.exe installer. Bulkhead never announced the change separately: the new name simply appeared in the Steam description in time for the Early Access launch on September 10.
According to the community, Elytra installs a driver and an Elytra.Service service that start together with the game. That explains the first wave of problems: at launch players reported BSODs and PC freezes, while conflicts with Vanguard and FACEIT produced "The anti-cheat service refused the game executable". We covered codes 1628505086, WD-L020 and the KB5124010 update story in a separate guide to Wardogs anti-cheat errors. The short version: most launch failures come from Windows, not from the cheat.
How Elytra differs from EAC in practice
The difference is easy to feel if you play with software. EAC in the beta was a well-known opponent that cheat developers had spent years working around. Elytra is new, and build developers had to study its logic from scratch in the first days after release. That is why several builds went into updating in September, and only the ones that passed our post-patch checks stayed in our catalog.
What Elytra checks in Wardogs
Officially, the studio reveals almost nothing. In a September 8 post Bulkhead wrote plainly "you don't talk about anti-cheat", so the picture has to be pieced together from the press, the rules on the game's website and what we and our customers see.
Behavioral analysis of aim and movement
According to the press and the community, Elytra is linked to VAIIYA, a company close to Embark Studios (THE FINALS, ARC Raiders). This is not officially confirmed, but the system is described in a similar way: the main focus is behavior analysis. Unnatural aiming (a sharp snap to the head, the same path shot after shot) and repeated "tracking" of an enemy through walls, where your crosshair keeps following a player you cannot see, both raise suspicion. ARC Raiders also relies on input telemetry, which we broke down in our article on input telemetry and bans in ARC Raiders, and many of those conclusions apply to Wardogs too.
So the driver looks for traces of tampering with the game process, and the behavioral part looks at the result. Even an undetected build can give you away if the aimbot lands on target in a single frame while your camera follows an enemy behind a concrete wall half a map away. That is why hidden cheaters with a wallhack and soft aim, called "closet cheaters" in Steam discussions, last longer than those who crank everything to the max. We expanded on this in our article on wallhack without aimbot in Wardogs.
AI plus a human moderator
In Wardogs, the algorithm does not get the last word. Moderation combines AI with manual review by a human, and on September 11-12 that backfired on the studio: a moderator mistakenly banned streamer summit1g instead of a cheater. The ban was lifted, and CEO Joe Brammer publicly admitted it was a human error. The takeaway for us is simpler: a suspicious match can be reviewed by eye, and then everything depends on how your play looks from the outside.
Reports add to this. Season 1 introduced a new report tracking system, and reports are now weighted: repeat and bad-faith reporters carry less influence. If the anti-cheat catches a cheater mid-match, the game can be terminated for all 100 players at once. How that works and how bans are announced on the server is covered in our piece on match termination and reports in Wardogs.
Secure Boot and TPM are not required yet
Right now you need neither Secure Boot nor TPM to play online. On its rules page dated September 7, Bulkhead says it does not "currently" require them but may introduce the requirement at any time. The press adds that players "linked to a cheater" may be forced to play with Secure Boot enabled. We showed how such requirements work in other games using Secure Boot and TPM in Battlefield 6 as an example.
Players also report the opposite problem: Memory Integrity (HVCI) and Hyper-V, they say, get in the way of Elytra starting up. On forums people suggest disabling Memory Integrity and running bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off. Bulkhead has no official VBS requirements, so this is simply a way to fix the game launch.
False bans at launch
The first days after release came with mistakes from the system itself. According to community reports, beta profile tags on some accounts conflicted with the new anti-cheat, which caused false bans, and this was fixed in the day one patch. There are no official details, but Steam discussions still carry threads like "FALSE BAN" and "Appeal for Unjust Ban".
What an Elytra detection costs: four levels of punishment
The price of a mistake in Wardogs is higher than in many shooters. Bulkhead has four levels: server restriction, temporary suspension, permanent account ban and hardware ban. The last one is tied to an "identifier derived from your device", which makes it an HWID ban on every account on that machine. For cheating and tampering with the anti-cheat the studio promises a permanent or hardware ban "with no prior warning".
Only a permanent account ban can be appealed, via appeal@bulkhead.com, with a reply in about 30 days. An HWID ban is final. On top of that, on September 18 the studio disabled Steam Family Sharing, saying it was being used to get back into the game after bans and keep cheating. We wrote separately about the punishment ladder and what to do after a hardware ban in Wardogs. Bulkhead has not published an official ban count, and there have been no announced ban waves, so the "thousands banned in a week" from videos are not backed by anything so far.
Are cheats compatible with Elytra
Short answer: yes, but only specific builds and only while their status is undetected. Every Wardogs item in our catalog is currently marked undetected, but we do not promise it will stay that way. Status is valid at the time of purchase, and after a big patch or an Elytra update any build may go into updating. There is always a risk, and with a hardware ban on the table it matters a lot.
After Patch 0.11 we ran the builds on Bakurani and Ozeti and sorted them by type:
- Internal builds (GHOST, ARCANE, NN PRO, KRUSH, BYSTER) run on the same PC as the game, so what matters most for them is staying current after every patch and tuning smoothness.
- ESP-only builds (ANCIENT, NN LITE) do not touch your aim at all. Behavioral analysis has less to hold on to: you do the shooting yourself, with your own hands.
- DMA builds (KRUSH DMA, ELEVATED WARDOGS DMA) read game memory from a second machine through a card, and no software runs on the gaming PC. Why you need a second machine against a kernel anti-cheat is explained in our article on DMA cheats for Wardogs.
- Window and system requirements differ: ANCIENT works only in Borderless, KRUSH and BYSTER only in Windowed, and BYSTER supports Windows 10 and 11 builds 22H2-25H2.
Settings that matter more than the build itself
When the anti-cheat watches behavior, your config matters more than the brand. Here is what we recommend based on our tests and support tickets:
- Humanize and smoothness. GHOST has Humanize with jitter, deadzone and reaction delay, ARCANE has humanize with smoothing, BYSTER has its own humanizer. Set smoothness so the crosshair settles over several frames instead of snapping to the head.
- Narrow FOV, not just the head. A wide capture circle drags your aim toward enemies you have not noticed yet. The "chest" or "body" bone looks more natural than nonstop headshots.
- Visibility check on. It stops the aimbot from locking onto an enemy behind a wall, and that kind of "tracking" through walls is exactly what the press names as one of Elytra's signals.
- ESP for decisions, not for stalking. Use the boxes to decide where to go, but do not rest your crosshair on a silhouette behind cover. It shows up both in behavioral data and in the recording a moderator will open.
- Stream proof. If you stream or record clips, pick a build that hides its overlay: GHOST, ANCIENT, NN PRO and NN LITE have it, while the ARCANE, KRUSH and BYSTER cards do not list it.
What to pick for Wardogs under Elytra
There is no single "best" build for every case, so we sorted the catalog by task:
- Lowest risk, information only: ANCIENT for about $3 a day (boxes, skeleton, nickname, health, weapon, distance, OBS hiding) or NN LITE for $3 a day with a radar and map markers on the M key. Neither has an aimbot.
- Aim that looks natural: GHOST from about $3.5 a day with Humanize and 0-100% recoil control, or ARCANE from $4 a day with movement prediction and smoothing.
- Fighting vehicles and holding points: BYSTER from about $3 a day with aim at enemies in vehicles and on turrets, ballistics and capture point timers. It has a lot of features that are easy to overdo, so keep the aim speed low.
- A gaming PC with no third-party software: KRUSH DMA from $4 a day or ELEVATED WARDOGS DMA from $3 a day (a lifetime option costs $200). ELEVATED has a separate mode against detection of sharp movements, and by default the software only reads memory.
All undetected builds with daily, weekly and monthly prices, window modes and a feature comparison are on the cheats for Wardogs → page. We update the list after every Wardogs patch and every Elytra change: if a build goes into updating, it drops out of our recommendations until the developer confirms compatibility.
Questions about an Elytra-friendly config are welcome in our community: Telegram (200+ members) and Discord (637+ members). We also help there with launch errors and suggest smoothness settings for a specific build.
FAQ about Wardogs cheats
Does Wardogs use Easy Anti-Cheat?
No, since release Wardogs runs Elytra. Easy Anti-Cheat was only used in the alpha and the closed beta, and by the Early Access launch on September 10 it had been replaced with kernel-level Elytra. If a guide or video recommends "EAC settings", it is outdated. At ForgeCheats we only keep builds in the catalog that were checked after the switch to Elytra.
Can Elytra ban you for ESP without an aimbot?
It can, if the build gets detected or your behavior looks unnatural, but the risk is lower than with aim. ESP-only builds like ANCIENT and NN LITE do not touch your crosshair, so behavioral analysis has a harder time telling you apart from an attentive player. The main rule we repeat in ForgeCheats support: do not keep your crosshair on silhouettes behind walls.
Do I need Secure Boot and TPM for Wardogs?
Not now, but Bulkhead has kept the right to introduce the requirement at any time. According to the press, it may first be applied to players linked to cheaters. If that happens, we at ForgeCheats will update compatibility info on the Wardogs hacks page and on the build cards.
Is it true that Elytra watches player behavior?
According to the press, yes, although Bulkhead does not spell it out officially. Reports mention a focus on aim analysis and repeated "tracking" of enemies through walls, and suspicious cases also get a human review. That is why at ForgeCheats we recommend enabling humanize, smoothness and the visibility check even in undetected builds.
What happens if Elytra catches a cheat mid-match?
The match can be terminated for everyone, and the account gets punished along Bulkhead's ladder, up to a hardware ban. According to the press, honest players get back the XP and cash they earned and what they spent on gear. An HWID ban cannot be appealed, so at ForgeCheats we advise taking your settings seriously from the very first match.
