Riot Games Lets Valorant Players Temporarily Turn Off Anti-Cheat After Criticism

Riot Games is going to slightly adjust the operation of Vanguard’s anti-cheat technology after criticism. Where the anti-cheat feature has always been running, even if the game itself was not active, it can now be disabled outside the game. If you then want to play, you must reboot first.

‘Nemi’ from Riot Games makes that known on Reddit. Immediately Vanguard shows a tray icon in Windows. This allows players to disable the anti-cheat technique, after which the PC enters an ‘untrusted mode’ and a reboot is required before Vanguard, and therefore Valorant, wants to start again. Vanguard can also be uninstalled in this mode, but whoever starts Valorant will see that Vanguard is installed again.

The anti-cheat software works at the kernel level. This is quite drastic and goes way beyond most existing techniques. Riot says it is taking steps to prevent cheat makers from exploiting code-signing holes and similar vulnerabilities in the OS. At the same time, Riot Games has increased the maximum reward for vulnerabilities in Vanguard to $100,000. Ars Technica published an extensive piece on Riot’s anti-cheat, with additional commentary from the developer and experts.

Valorant is currently in closed beta and should be available for free to all players worldwide this summer. The studio’s most famous title is League of Legends.