WARDOGS keybinds and default PC controls

BULKHEAD has not published a control list, so the table below is built from the two that exist, BisectHosting’s and Shacknews’. They use the same action names, most likely the ones in the game’s menu, and disagree on only three keys. Where a gameplay video shows the key being pressed, the video is named too.

The keybindings screen is under Settings, then Controls, then Keybindings, and it is the only list that describes your install. Helicopter keys sit in their own Rotary Vehicle block near the bottom of it.

Reload, rotate and reverse: R or right click?

The two lists part company on exactly three rows, and in all three the pattern is the same: BisectHosting gives R, Shacknews gives Right Click. On every other row both of them carry, the key is the same, which points to a transcription slip in one of them rather than two different builds. Shacknews also has a few rows BisectHosting lacks, marked in the table.

Reload is settled. jackfrags presses R for a normal reload and holds it for a combat reload that drops the magazine, and IceManIsaac calls R the reload button, so the Shacknews row is wrong there. For rotating a building piece and for reverse gear no video settles it. Right mouse with a hammer out opens the build wheel in IceManIsaac’s tips, which makes it an unlikely rotate key too, but that is not proof of R. Check those two in your own menu before you rebind anything around them.

The parachute is Space, once you own one

Pressing Space in the air does nothing without a parachute in your kit, which is the whole answer to a Steam thread from a player who tapped and held Space with no result. GameSpot sends you to the gear tab at an equipment vendor; a pilot waiting on passengers can press B in the helicopter and buy them from the shop there. TacticalNed’s pre-launch guide adds that a chute opens once: land or cut it with C and you need another. What else goes in the kit is on the loadout page.

There are two kinds. The basic chute cannot be steered according to GameSpot, and the Sports Parachute is the upgrade; the Season 1 changelog moved it on the Career track from level 36 down to level 35. Listed under the unlock changes in Steam announcement — Pre-Load Live & Season 1 Changelog

Two warnings from the same video. The red bar is generous, but opening a chute on a short drop you would survive anyway can break your legs, because the game treats it as the end of a skydive. On a drop of a few metres, leave it closed.

When Deploy Parachute goes missing

Bind Space to something else, say helicopter collective the way some flying guides recommend, and Deploy Parachute can end up with no key. GameSpot, whose own flying guide suggests that rebind, says as much. There are two ways back, and the first is the safe one.

1. Reassign it in the menu. The keybind FAQ on the Steam forum, written during the beta, says the action now shows in Settings, Controls, Keybindings: find Deploy Parachute and give it a key again.
2. Edit the settings file, as a last resort. Close the game, press Windows+R and open %LOCALAPPDATA%\Wardogs\Saved\Config\WindowsClient. Copy GameUserSettings.ini somewhere safe first. In the original, find the line naming DeployParachute and change PrimaryKey=(bIsCustom=True) to PrimaryKey=(Key=SpaceBar,bIsCustom=True). That is GameSpot’s fix; copy the change from here rather than from the article, whose printed line uses curly quotes.

GameSpot says the developers meant to fix this for launch. No patch note since has listed a parachute fix, and the updates page tracks every one.

Rebinding: one key, one job

The defaults reuse keys freely. Space jumps, brakes a car and opens a parachute; C crouches, switches the vehicle camera and cuts the chute; V is melee, vault, flares and dismantle. You usually cannot do the same by hand. StoneMountain64, after launch, found that a key you assign generally holds one action, with a few exceptions in certain vehicles, and that changing Shift for a vehicle took it off an infantry action as well. The Steam FAQ warns that some custom bindings behave that way, so after any helicopter change go back and check sprint, jump, fire and Deploy Parachute.

• To clear a key, select it on the keybindings screen and press Delete, according to the Steam FAQ.
• Mouse flight is not a keybind. Rotary Vehicle Mouse Control and the mouse swipe options are under Controls, then Settings. IGN says mouse control is off by default.
• Keys you leave unbound may not stay that way. GhostGaming found keys he had unbound reset to defaults after a restart in every alpha and beta test, so he parks unused actions on F6, F7 and F8 instead. Nobody has said whether launch fixed that.
• A controller cannot be remapped in the game. Players on the Steam forum said so after launch. Some remap outside it with DS4Windows or DSX, and whether the anti-cheat tolerates those has not been answered. What the studio promised for pads is on the controller page.

HOTAS, flight sticks and pedals

The one official word on flight sticks is a developer reply on the Steam forum, marked as the answer, to a player asking for joystick and throttle binding:

“It’s on the development pipeline, but not currently a priority for the team.”

From Steam discussions — developer reply on HOTAS support That reply came months before launch, and nothing since has named a supported device. The launch changelog did say helicopter input damping now applies to every input device, without listing them. Listed in Steam announcement — Pre-Load Live & Season 1 Changelog

Players fly with sticks anyway. What they describe on the forum and on video:

• The beta had a HOTAS option in the controls, and the Steam FAQ said to leave it off without a stick plugged in, because turning it on can stop mouse and keyboard flight inputs.
• Axes are assigned on a control mappings screen with deadzone and sensitivity settings, which a Virpil owner was still using after launch. IceManIsaac, who flies with a HOTAS, set his deadzones to about 0.1 during the beta.
• IceManIsaac found no stick binding for free look in the beta, so he mapped a throttle button to Left Alt with Joystick Gremlin.
• A Virpil owner’s collective read only fully up or fully down until he removed the attached control panel from the stick’s configuration; his guess is that the game struggles with that many axes.
• Two players asked the developer on the HOTAS thread whether remapping software such as JoyToKey is safe with the anti-cheat. Neither got a reply.

For flying itself, the helicopter page covers landing and the guides that teach rebound layouts, the squads page has the voice keys in context, and the settings page covers graphics.