WARDOGS Controls, Keybinds and Voice Chat

Controls the Tutorial Does Not Cover

Action	Input	Notes
Adjust zeroing	Page Up / Page Down	Works on most weapons with adjustable sights; not on pistols
Tactical sprint	Shift again while running	Duration and availability depend on your weight class; heavy kits cannot use it, super heavy cannot sprint at all
Unlock a vehicle	L	Once for squad only, again for everyone
Vendor menu in a vehicle	B	Buy ammo, shells and countermeasures without leaving the seat
Place a drop marker	Right-click on the map	Appears in the pilot’s HUD; short-lived, so place it just before arrival
Rebuy your last kit	Rebuy button, bottom-left of the vendor	Two clicks to rebuild the loadout you died with
Coarse aim in vehicles / turrets	A and D	Then use the mouse for fine adjustment
Squad chat	Esc → Create or Join	Unlimited squad size; enemies cannot hear it

Zeroing Is Not Optional at Range

WARDOGS fights happen across a 2×2 km zone, and bullet drop is modelled. Page Up and Page Down step your sight’s zero — set it before the shot rather than holding over and hoping. The firing range is the place to learn what your zero steps look like at 200, 400 and 600 metres with the optic you actually run.

Weight Governs Movement

Your carry weight sits in one of five bands and each one degrades movement speed, stamina regeneration, jump height, weapon sway, ADS time and lean time. The two hard cut-offs:

Heavy — no tactical sprint
Super heavy — no sprinting at all

Most players target medium. The full table is in the loadout guide.

Voice Chat (VOIP)

WARDOGS ships with two voice channels, and the difference matters tactically:

Squad / team chat — set up through Esc → Create or Join. Squad size is unlimited, and enemies cannot hear it.
Proximity chat — everyone nearby hears you, including enemy players. It is a feature, not a bug: bluffing, negotiating and taunting across a treeline are part of the game’s character.

Both can be muted independently in the settings if voice is not for you. If your microphone is not being picked up at all, check the Windows privacy setting for microphone access and confirm the correct input device in the game’s audio settings before assuming the game is broken — VOIP problems were among the most common beta reports, and BULKHEAD listed VOIP explicitly as one of the systems the second Closed Beta was stress-testing at scale.

Controller and Flight Sticks

Controller support at Early Access launch is “partial” — BULKHEAD’s own wording — with partial aim assist. They noted that without any aim assist, controller play would be “comically bad”.
HOTAS / flight sticks work for helicopters and give smoother inputs than mouse and keyboard, at the cost of setup time. Mouse pilots should instead enable rotary vehicle mouse control and map swipe left/right to yaw and up/down to pitch — see the helicopter guide.

Two Items That Look Identical

Smoke grenades and flare/signal grenades are near-identical in the buy menu. Smoke is cover for pushes and revives; a flare is a thin vertical column that marks a supply request. Buying the wrong one is the difference between reviving a teammate and advertising your position.

Sources: TacticalNed’s mechanics breakdown, DemoMan0351’s 40+ beta tips, StratzFPS’s flight guide (Aug 2026), and BULKHEAD’s Closed Beta 02 announcement (Sep 1, 2026).

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