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WARDOGSWARDOGS · PC · version Early Access Season 1 and Early Access Season 2

Closing the game can freeze the whole PC

UnconfirmedUnpatched

Updated

On PC, some players find that their computer locks up shortly after they close WARDOGS: the desktop works for a few seconds, then stops responding and needs a hard restart. It happens whether the game is closed from its menu or with Alt+F4, and players say the game itself runs normally until then. Reports began in late September and grew after an update around the start of October (one player names Update 0.1.2); they continued into Season 2, and one player lost their game settings to a blue screen on exit. Three players say uninstalling the IObit Advanced SystemCare utility stopped it, and another avoids it by ending the game from Task Manager on a second Windows virtual desktop. There is no official acknowledgement.

Lifecycle

Reported · stage 1 of 5

36days open

Since first report

  1. Reported (reached) · now
  2. Confirmed (not yet)next
  3. Acknowledged (not yet)—
  4. Partial (not yet)—
  5. Patched (not yet)—
In current stage 36d
Workaround available
Game
WARDOGS
Platform
PC
Affected version
Early Access Season 1 and Early Access Season 2
Kind
Bug
Confirmation
Unconfirmed
Patch status
Unpatched
First reported
Last updated
Latest fix or workaround
Workaround, : Oct 31: a player who had tried many fixes, including new hardware, says the freeze stopped once they removed Advanced SystemCare. Source
How we label issues

Kind

  • Exploit: Repeatable and clearly advantageous to the player using it; essentially cheating.
  • Bug: Everything else: crashes, launch errors, broken features, visual or audio faults.

Confirmation

  • Confirmed: A developer or official account acknowledged it, an official known-issues board lists it, it appears in official patch notes, or 100+ corroborating posts on X were actually counted.
  • Unconfirmed: None of the above yet. Press articles are reports and never confirm an issue on their own.

Patch status

  • Unpatched: Known and open; no fix has been claimed.
  • Reported as unpatched: Players credibly report it persisting, including after a fix claim that never appeared in patch notes.
  • Partially patched: Official patch notes list a fix, but credible later reports say it still happens, or the notes only cover part of it.
  • Reported as patched: A developer, official account or player says it is fixed, but no official patch notes list it.
  • Patched: Official patch notes (a Steam news post or the publisher's patch notes page) list the fix, and nothing credible says it still happens.

Active means still affecting players: Unpatched, Reported as unpatched or Partially patched. Patched and Reported as patched issues are closed.

Estimated impact runs from 0.1 to 9.9 with one decimal. xploitr sets it from the rubric below. Factors: advantage to other players, reach, play blocked or progress lost, frequency, and whether a reliable workaround exists. Patched issues keep their historical impact.

Signed-in community members can report new issues and suggest status changes, such as Fixed or Still unpatched, with their platform, version and a source. Every report and suggestion is reviewed by an editor before anything on the record changes. A new issue is published only when the report has at least three independent sources (distinct accounts, or distinct sites for web pages, after blocked sources are removed), unless the owner approved that issue by hand. Approved input appears as a dated Update from the xploitr community source on the issue's timeline, credited to the member's username (reports can opt out and stay anonymous); nothing is counted or published automatically.

Impact bands

  • 0.1–2.9 Low: Cosmetic, audio, text and UI glitches with no effect on play.
  • 3.0–4.9 Moderate: Narrow gameplay bugs or small exploits, rare or with a workaround.
  • 5.0–6.9 Elevated: Bugs most players in a mode notice: hit registration, desync, balance-breaking damage.
  • 7.0–8.4 High: Widely abused competitive or economy exploits; crashes many players hit.
  • 8.5–9.9 Severe: Launch blockers, widespread progress or item loss, exploits that break the game for everyone.

Each issue has a dated timeline of updates (report, acknowledgement, announcement, fix, workaround). Update summaries are our own words; quotes and excerpts are the source's words, or our English translation when marked.

Estimated impactEstimated impact 4.8 out of 9.9, ModerateOur estimate from how many players it reaches and what it costs them.

Updates · 15

Show fewer
  1. Report

    Sep 25: a player with no problems during play says the whole PC locks up within about 30 seconds of closing the game and needs a hard restart.

    Community report · Steam · Forum thread ·
    “within 30 seconds of me closing the game, my pc completely freezes and I have to do a hard restart”
    Community report · Steam · Forum thread · Open source
  2. Report

    Oct 2: another player says it has recently started happening to them too.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “never used to but now it completely lock-up my PC after closing!”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  3. Report

    Oct 3: a player says the PC freezes whether the game is closed from its menu or with Alt+F4.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “Doesn't matter is you Alt+F4 or close properly same bs effect.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  4. Report

    Oct 4: a player opens a thread to find out how many others have their PC lock up once the game has closed to the desktop.

    Community report · Steam · Forum thread ·
    “when closing game down to desktop mode the game closes”
    Community report · Steam · Forum thread · Open source
  5. Report

    Oct 4: a player says it happens every single time they close the game.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “100% if the time, closing Wardogs causes PC to freeze up.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  6. Report

    Oct 5: on Windows 11, a player's desktop works for a few seconds after exiting, then nothing but the mouse pointer responds and the PC has to be powered off. They say it began after a recent patch.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “There are a few secs after exit everything is fine then everything just freezes.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  7. Workaround

    Oct 13: the same player found Windows event logs pointing to IObit Advanced SystemCare; after uninstalling it, closing the game no longer froze the PC.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “Once I uninstalled it, it never crashed my PC when I exited”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  8. Workaround

    Oct 15: another player says removing Advanced SystemCare stopped the freeze for them too.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “Uninstalling IOBIT Advanced SystemCare didnt crash anymore after exiting the game.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  9. Report

    Oct 16: a player says the game always took minutes to close, but since a late Season 1 update their PC freezes on every exit, so they restart after each session.

    Community report · Steam · Forum thread ·
    “after i exit the game my PC freezes every time”
    Community report · Steam · Forum thread · Open source
  10. Report

    Oct 16: another player says it has happened since Update 0.1.2 and that none of the fixes they found online helped.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “the computer freezes when exiting the game, and the only option is a hard reset”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  1. Report

    Oct 16: a player says it started for them with Season 2, and a blue screen on exit wiped their game settings.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “For me this issue started with season 2”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  2. Report

    Oct 17: a player on Windows 10 with an AMD Radeon RX 7800 has the same freeze, only when closing the game.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “I don't have any issues until I close it”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  3. Report

    Oct 25: a Windows 11 player with an RTX 3070 Ti can play for hours without trouble, but closing the game freezes the PC.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “game runs fine for hours, but simply closing it freezes the pc”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  4. Workaround

    Oct 25: a player avoids the freeze by switching to a second Windows virtual desktop and ending the game from Task Manager there.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “I found a workaround, just need Virtual Desktops enabled.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
  5. Workaround

    Oct 31: a player who had tried many fixes, including new hardware, says the freeze stopped once they removed Advanced SystemCare.

    Community report · Steam · Forum reply ·
    “Only the person who mentioned Advanced SystemCare really helped.”
    Community report · Steam · Forum reply · Open source
Sources · 1515 CommunityCommunity reportSteam · Forum thread+ 14 similar community reportsShow all →
Community reportSteam · Forum thread
“within 30 seconds of me closing the game, my pc completely freezes and I have to do a hard restart”
  • Community reportSteam · Forum replyOpen
    “never used to but now it completely lock-up my PC after closing!”
  • Community reportSteam · Forum replyOpen
    “Doesn't matter is you Alt+F4 or close properly same bs effect.”
Show all 15 sources