Riot Games has launched its anti-cheat software Vanguard to an overwhelmingly negative response, including players claiming that it is bricking their PCs.
Vanguard is Riot’s custom anti-cheat software, designed to ensure competitive League of Legends is free of cheating. It consists of a client that runs alongside League of Legends and a kernel mode driver.
Riot is in the habit of using the League of Legends subreddit to collect bug reports from players as well as respond to questions and issues. Currently, the thread for reporting bugs introduced by patch 14.9 (which added Vanguard) has over 1,100 comments from frustrated League fans.
Their other online game, Valorant, has also been affected. “I honestly can’t play Valo[rant] because of Vanguard, it legit blue screened my computer multiple times and caused a bunch of my programs to crash,” said one user on X.
One League of Legends creator claimed he had to remove the CMOS battery to resolve an issue caused by Vanguard.
Update: after taking out CMOS battery and resetting battery was able to finally get into BIOS and fix PC w/ Vanguard running (you need UEFI and TPM2.0 both enabled in BIOS or your PC wont load). Other computer still bricked though. pic.twitter.com/f6aWHUYDHk
— H. Baker (@LSXYZ9) May 1, 2024
Riot Games’ response to issues with Vanguard
After several comments and responses in the master bug reporting thread by Riot staff were downvoted as community managers attempted to handle the backlash, Riot took to their own lengthy post to explain that the rollout has gone well from their perspective and that there are no confirmed instances of Vanguard causing damage to hardware.
“Overall, the rollout has gone well and we’re already seeing Vanguard functioning as intended. We’ve already seen a hard drop off of bot accounts in the usual places, and we will continue to monitor this. Since 14.9 went live, fewer than 0.03% of players have reported issues with Vanguard. […] At this point in time, we have not confirmed any instances of Vanguard bricking anyone’s hardware.”
The thread has seen significant activity, with over 2,100 responses. Many comments are from players who will be quitting League of Legends, at least until the errors with Vanguard are resolved. “My biggest concerns are privacy and security, and I want to personally let Riot know that as a player since 2011 Riot’s decision to force players to install an always-on, kernel-level monitoring system to play their game has caused me to quit,” posted one user.
After the excitement around their announced solo or co-op bullet hell mode, due later this year, this reaction to Vanguard will surely be troubling to Riot Games. Expect the situation to develop further as they address issues and continue to attempt to placate fans.
