WARDOGS: anti-cheat rejected game file. How to fix (2026)

WARDOGS no longer uses Easy Anti-Cheat. During the beta the studio switched to Elytra, and that is when the "The anti-cheat service refused the game executable" messages started. The Steam store page now says one thing: the game uses a kernel level anti-cheat called Elytra. Below are the four fixes that worked for players, ordered by how often they were confirmed.

What changed in the anti-cheat

Earlier playtests ran on Easy Anti-Cheat. After the switch to Elytra, some people who had been playing without trouble could no longer get in. That is how the author of a Steam thread described it on 4 September: he was playing, and after the anti-cheat change he gets a refusal to launch the game executable.

His diagnosis, backed by what Windows itself reports: the Elytra driver fails to load properly with code integrity enforcement on. The anti-cheat needs a working driver before it lets the game start. The driver does not come up, so the anti-cheat refuses the game executable. The message points at the game file while the problem sits in the protection driver.

BULKHEAD has not announced a mandatory Secure Boot or TPM 2.0 requirement. I write this because half the guides online tell you to go into the BIOS and turn on Secure Boot before you have even checked whether that is your problem. Changing firmware settings is not a toggle in the game options and it can cut you off from your own drive.

"The anti-cheat service refused the game executable"

Four fixes confirmed by players. Work through them in order, because they run from the one that worked most often to the most invasive.

1. Close any other anti-cheat running in the background. This is the most common cause. Players named Riot Vanguard from Valorant and the FACEIT anti-cheat. Two kernel drivers guarding the same thing get in each other’s way. You can shut Vanguard down from the tray icon or in Task Manager, then restart the PC.
2. Verify the game files in Steam. Verify the game files in Steam.
3. Delete the Elytra folder and the game data, then verify. In the game directory you will find an Elytra folder, delete it. Same for the WARDOGS folder in AppData. Only then verify the files in Steam. On the first launch the game can sit still for half a minute while it rebuilds the settings. That is normal, do not close it.
4. Update Windows and the graphics driver, then restart. For one player it only worked after updating the system together with the Nvidia driver.

If you still get the refusal after these four steps, the problem sits on Elytra’s side, not on your PC. What is left is a report on the game’s Discord and waiting for a fix. Taking Windows apart will not help here.

If that still did not help

Three things worth checking before you file a report, because a kernel level anti-cheat reacts to them exactly as it should.

• Antivirus exclusions. The whole game folder and the anti-cheat folder separately. That includes Windows Defender, not only third party suites.
• Overlays. Discord, GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner, the Steam overlay. RivaTuner injects itself into the game process and a kernel level anti-cheat treats that as interference.
• Memory integrity. Windows Security, Core isolation. This feature can block the anti-cheat driver and it shows up as exactly this message.

Application error 0xc000007b

This one comes right after the anti-cheat message and it is rarely a separate problem. The game process tries to start after the protection has already blocked one of its components. Fix the first error and this one goes away on its own. Do not keep reinstalling Visual C++ or DirectX, they will not help here.

Secure Boot and TPM: check before you go into BIOS

Checking costs nothing and changes nothing. Press Windows plus R and type msinfo32 then read two lines: Secure Boot State and BIOS Mode. Secure Boot works only in UEFI mode. If you are on Legacy or CSM, switching Secure Boot on requires converting the disk from MBR to GPT, and that is a serious operation, not a click in BIOS.

Before you change anything in firmware, secure your BitLocker recovery key. Changing the Secure Boot state changes the measurements in the TPM, and disk encryption treats that as tampering and asks for the key on the next boot. If you do not have it, you lose access to your own data. You will find the key in your Microsoft account under devices. That is the only reason this paragraph is in bold.

On AMD boards the TPM feature is called fTPM or AMD CPU fTPM, on Intel it is Intel PTT. Older AMD boards had a documented stutter problem with fTPM enabled, fixed by a BIOS update. If you enable fTPM and suddenly get micro stutter in every game, update the BIOS before you blame WARDOGS.

The wider context is worth knowing. Call of Duty and Battlefield 6 already require Secure Boot together with TPM 2.0, and Riot does the same in Vanguard on Windows 11. Kernel level anti-cheats are heading that way, because Secure Boot is the only mechanism that stops an unsigned driver from loading before the protection starts. If BULKHEAD adds that requirement during Early Access, nobody will be surprised. Today there is no such requirement.

What this guide does not promise

I do not know what sits inside your PC, and Elytra is new with the studio still working on it. The steps above come from players they worked for and from what BULKHEAD wrote in its own patches. We update this post at the same address whenever a new cause or an official fix shows up.

If the game does start but stutters on strong hardware, that is a different problem with different causes. We wrote them up in the piece on what actually costs you frames in WARDOGS and in the one about why the CPU is the ceiling in a dense fight. If you would rather someone else did it, that is our day job at remote PC optimization, with a before and after measurement.

Sources and date

Updated 14 September 2026. The information about the Elytra anti-cheat comes from the WARDOGS store page on Steam, where it appears as "Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat: Elytra". The error description, the driver diagnosis and the four fixes come from the thread "The anti-cheat service refused the game executable" on the game’s Steam forum, opened on 4 September 2026, together with the replies from players. The system requirements come from the store page. The game has been in Early Access since 10 September 2026, the studio is BULKHEAD and the publisher is Team17.

Want to improve your FPS in WARDOGS?

Zobacz nasz przewodnik WARDOGS FPS Guide 2026: Fix Low FPS, Stuttering & Lag - CPU/GPU settings, fixes for stuttering, frame drops, low FPS and launcher crashes (Elytra).

KaRzye Runs the research and every session at UltimateMove. FACEIT Level 10 in CS2, Immortal in Valorant. Twenty years in BIOS, memory and drivers. Watch him play.