Wardogs developers are rushing to fix the XP exploit that allows players to quickly unlock tanks and crush the competition on the first day of Season 2.

Launching a new live season is tough, and subtle changes to a game can have big consequences once players get their hands on it. Wardogs proved that true with the launch of its second season this week, as players were able to unlock tanks on day one. Read more

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The good news (or bad, depending on whether you feel like you missed a start) is that this exploit has already been fixed. Players can drive out of their base, drop pallets, and return to base to earn a significant amount of XP. This, along with faster XP gains for the driver role, allowed people to quickly climb the driver progression path and unlock tanks.

This was a problem, as unlocking anti-tank gear via other progression paths took much longer than a few hours of dedicated grinding for these Driver XP exploits, meaning the vast majority of players weren't ready to deal with tanks - unless they used the exploit themselves and got their own.

Bulkhead co-founder Howard Philpott said in a post on the Wardogs Discord: "We've got our hands up and we got a few things wrong." He went on to explain that a backend update is in the works that fixes the XP driver path progression bug. It removes the aforementioned exploit, as well as the Lonestar (blue team) cash and XP bonus.

In a video posted alongside Discord, Post technical designer Mark Tadros explained that players who use the exploit "a lot" will receive a 24-hour ban, though the number of guilty players is less than 1,000. Everyone else who participated in the exercise seems to have been left alone, to a lesser extent.

It's the right call, and frankly a sad conclusion to what otherwise seemed to be a laser-directed set of changes meant to remove some of Wardogs' complex problems. In the first season, Driver XP was one of the most time-consuming, so the change to improve this idea was great. Similarly, the XP removed and the cash bonus offered to the blue team was a smart solution for a group that struggled to win games in the first season.

However, the reaction in the community has been mixed. Some of them are, understandably, a little sad to miss out on the nice XP gains. Others pointed out that this all happened while they were at work - woe betide the working gamer.

Nevertheless, Wardogs continues to prove its worth as a popular and captivating military FPS - and one of the blockbusters of the year. In our Early Access Wardogs review, we said that the game's blend of the best competitive shooters with something all its own made it "a brilliantly fresh take on the genre".