The WARDOGS crosshair: how it works and how to turn it off

The adaptive crosshair, in BULKHEAD’s words

BULKHEAD has written one sentence about the crosshair, in the bug fixes of Update 0.1.2 on 30 September 2026: “The adaptive crosshair now correctly hides while aiming down sights.” That names the feature and says what it is meant to do — show while you fire from the hip, get out of the way when you aim. Nothing BULKHEAD has published says what “adaptive” means beyond that, or whether it is on for a new player. Players describe it as a hip-fire mark that is there “when you're not ADS” and sways with the weapon rather than sitting fixed in the centre of the screen; one asked for “a simple dot option instead of that weird swaying thing”.

Update 0.1.2, the patch that names it →

How to turn the crosshair off, or back on

Players say it is a single switch. Answering a 27 September thread about the crosshair, one wrote: “There is a setting to turn it off. Interface -> Adaptive crosshair”. Two others describe the same thing independently — a pre-launch bug report says “in settings adaptive crosshair is enable”, and a 12 October post says “I turned my crosshair off completely.” BULKHEAD has not documented the menu, so treat the label as players’ wording until you see it yourself. No source mentions a colour, size, thickness, opacity, dot or static option; players asking for one suggests there is none.

The rest of the WARDOGS settings, and what is published about them →

1. 01

   Open Settings

   The game’s own settings screen.

2. 02

   Go to the Interface tab

   Where players report the crosshair switch sits.

3. 03

   Toggle Adaptive crosshair

   Off hides the hip-fire crosshair entirely, by players’ accounts; on brings it back.

Known crosshair bugs, and where each one stands

The reports below are players’, with their dates. What is official is Team17 Support’s answer to them: on 15 September Team17_Service wrote that “we have received similar reports from other players on this issue” about “the crosshair either disappearing when ADS or staying stuck in your HUD”, and “We have now passed this over to the team to investigate further.” The 0.1.2 line above is the only fix published, and a player said on 12 October: “Sometimes your crosshair will still show when you ADS.” No Season 02 note mentions the crosshair.

Every default WARDOGS keybind, and resetting a broken one →

• One player reports a stuck crosshair cleared after dying and respawning. Another plays with it off entirely: “turn it off and just fire where you think it should be”. Neither is an official workaround.
• Optic reticles have their own reports — a scope reticle drawn larger than it should be, a reticle reflected in puddles. Those are the sight, not the adaptive crosshair; whether the switch above affects them is not reported.

Crosshair X, Crosshair V2 and other overlays

BULKHEAD and Team17 have not named any crosshair overlay — not on wardogs.com, in 34 Steam announcements, in the studio’s videos, or in any Team17 reply found. What they have published is general. The enforcement page says the anti-cheat works partly by “monitoring applications running on your machine during gameplay”, and the EULA prohibits “unauthorised third-party software in connection with the Services”. Whether an overlay that only draws a dot counts as that is not stated, in either direction. A player asked exactly this on 10 September — “Am i allowed or not?” — and no developer answered; a ban-appeals post claiming Crosshair X “gets flagged” offers no evidence. This site will not tell you it is safe.

WARDOGS anti-cheat and what gets players banned →

“Red dot crosshair” means an optic

A red dot in WARDOGS is a sight you unlock and fit, not a crosshair setting. The Season 02 patch notes list the Compact P-1 Red Dot at level 21 for $12.5k and move the Compact T-2 Red Dot from level 4 to level 17. Fitting one changes what you see when aiming down sights; it does nothing to the hip-fire crosshair.

The Compact T-2 Red Dot in the database →

What is not established

No source checked for this page — BULKHEAD’s included — publishes the following:

• Whether the adaptive crosshair is on by default for a new player.
• The exact menu label and path, beyond players’ “Interface -> Adaptive crosshair”, and whether it has modes rather than on and off.
• What “adaptive” means beyond hiding while aiming down sights.
• Any colour, size, dot or static crosshair option.
• Why one player saw the crosshair on some servers and not others.
• Whether Update 0.1.2 fully fixed the crosshair showing while aiming.
• Whether Crosshair X, Crosshair V2 or any other overlay is allowed, detected or bannable.

Common questions