WARDOGS update 0.1.2: the WD-L020 fix, the exploit crackdown, the DEPLOY screen and the two October hotfixes

If you play rather than run a server, these are the changes that reach you. The rest of the page explains each one.

The WD-L020 crash had a cause outside WARDOGS. BULKHEAD's note reads: 'Fixed the issue caused by the latest Windows 11 update, KB5124010, causing the recent WD-L020 crashes.' So players who started crashing after that Windows update weren't imagining the timing, and rolling back drivers wouldn't have helped. The fix came through the game itself.

If you still see WD-L020 after 30 September, the patch has not reached you. Let Steam finish updating WARDOGS, then verify the game files (Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files). Other crash codes are unrelated to this fix. Our WARDOGS crashing guide lists every error code the official posts and player threads document, with the fix each source gives, including the launch-era WD-L004 and 1147405308.

The economy section is short and blunt. Here are the four fixes, in BULKHEAD's wording, with what each one closes:

The context is patch 0.11, two weeks earlier, whose section 'Our Stance on Economy Abuse' set the penalties. Abusing cash exploits meant a timed ban, with the length depending on previous bans, and cash and XP reset to 0. Making content that tutorialises economy exploits 'with no regard for reporting the issue' would be treated as advertising cheats, which means a permanent ban. XP farming was the third category. Update 0.1.2 closes the specific holes and raises the ceiling. Repeat abuse of 'repeatable unintended exploits' can now bring a permanent ban 'without warning', and real-money trading is named alongside exploits. If you found a bug, the line BULKHEAD drew in 0.11 still holds: there is 'a difference between promoting and alerting'. Report it, don't farm it.

The biggest visible change is the new DEPLOY flow. You hit Deploy and choose Official, Community, Infantry Mode or Low-Level. BULKHEAD calls it 'the first step intended to help signpost players toward servers running these modifiers'. It builds on patch 0.11, which split the browser into Community and Official lists two weeks earlier, after the studio admitted community servers had been 'underserved'.

BULKHEAD's wording is that Infantry Mode and Low-Level are 'modifiers' that some community servers run. The patch notes don't define either one further, so the server's own name and rules are the place to check what it changes before you join. The other six interface changes in the notes:

Five changes in 0.1.2 are for people who host community servers through BULKHEAD's approved partners. They are mostly about security. Admins can now set a daily restart time in UTC. A new RCON AllowedHosts setting restricts who can reach RCON at all. RCON message and broadcast lengths are capped. RCON now defaults to 'Standard' response detail instead of 'Full', and 'config responses no longer expose server internals'. Finally, ServerImageURL is checked when the config loads.

Read together with the 'increased server security to prevent exploitation' line and the 2 October security hotfix, the pattern is clear. Some of the post-launch trouble came through server tooling, and the studio was tightening it before Season 2 brought new content. The servers guide covers hosting partners and the community-server rules from patch 0.11, including the faction-bonus warning BULKHEAD added for Season 2.

Read by play style, the 24 lines land unevenly. This table sorts them by the kind of player they affect, so you can skip what doesn't apply to you. Every entry is a line from the patch notes or the 2 October hotfix posts. None of it is inferred behaviour.

Pilots of the Little Bird and the Lakota get nothing directly; the only aircraft lines concern the Havoc. They should read the Season 2 preview instead. It promises changes to 'vehicle handling' and 'controller responsiveness', and the full Season 2 notes of 14 October list them: heavier tracked vehicles, a reworked Humvee, and an Aim Assist strength slider plus faster aim acceleration for controllers.

The remaining fixes are small but player-facing. Throwables can no longer be used from enclosed vehicle seats, so grenades, smoke and C4 can't be thrown from inside armour. The adaptive crosshair now hides correctly while aiming down sights. Buildable 'crit spots' — the weak points you hit to destroy a structure — no longer reappear where you just hit, get pushed into corners or jump to the far side; they 'now favour a spot you can reach from where you're standing'. A bug that made the Havoc take extra damage from 20 mm and 30 mm cannon fire is fixed. Localised text was also improved.

Two server-side lines finish the list: 'various server stability hotfixes' and the security line above. Neither gives detail, and we don't speculate past it.

Two days after 0.1.2, BULKHEAD posted twice. The first post, just after midnight UTC, announced a hotfix for 'minor security and stability issues affecting some players' at 08:00 UTC on Friday 2 October, with about an hour of downtime.

The second, that afternoon, made two balance changes without a client download or downtime. IR rangefinders were disabled in the vendor 'until Season 02, where they will require batteries to use', because 'they cross the line into being too overpowered'. And the CIWS now destroys the Havoc 'in around 6 seconds as opposed to 12'. The studio wrote: 'We acknowledge we overcorrected this in the previous patch.' The battery requirement was then confirmed in the 9 October Season 2 preview.

Update 0.1.2 also ended with a promise: Season 02 would be 'a larger content update, with new map conditions, equipment, balance reworks and additional features'. That update arrived on 15 October 2026 as update 0.2.0, with full patch notes posted on 14 October. The patch notes hub lists every official post in order.