Vanguard, the controversial anti-cheat program developed by Riot Games, has always been at the center of controversy. Since its launch, it has generated debate due to its installation in the root of the operating systemeven requiring its constant execution 24 hours a day to be able to play VALORANT, in addition, it has been blamed for various performance problems on numerous computers.
However, the controversy reached a new level when Vanguard made its debut on last Wednesday, May 1 in League of Legends, leaving in its wake an overwhelming trail of negative reviews, complaints and problems.
Vanguard is a kernel-level anti-cheat, similar to those found in other multiplayer games like Fortnite and Warzone. A while ago, some players raised accusationsstating that it was spyware, since, when installed, it delivered a warning message informing access to the main functions of your PC.
Now, after the release of League of Legends patch 14.9the concerns previously shown by the players are coming true, total chaos breaking out, as Vanguard has been accused of corrupting users’ PC sessions and manipulating unrelated files.
One of the many users who have complained about this problem on reddit is baldounce, who published a post explaining that he received a blue screen when trying to update your BIOS and that after managing to start in safe mode, a message from Vanguard saying that it has corrupt files in “System 32” keep appearing. The user ends up saying that because of this he will have to do a clean installation of Windows.
In addition to all the chaos with Vanguard functionality, a https://twitter.com/w_sted/status/1785673145606611098 that Valorant now takes screenshots of your PC, being able to capture your Discord chat and uploading it to the servers, it even claims that it can put any window in full screen without you knowing.
On social networks, it has been observed how thousands of people have chosen to turn their backs and take advantage of the opportunity to permanently leave League of Legends, but despite this, it does not seem to be a problem for Riot, as the player base is huge and continues to perform positively in terms of numbers. We just have to wait until all these problems are part of the past, since, at least at this moment, the Vanguard’s situation is quite complex.
Riot responds to the accusations
Riot has posted several responses addressing the performance issues in redditstating that the wave of new technological problems does not correlate with the launch of Vanguard.
When a player claims that their laptop is not booting up and is not receiving power from its charger, senior anti-cheat analyst Matt ‘K30’ Paoletti responds: “A problem like this would not be related to Vanguard. If you haven’t restarted your computer in a while, it could be related to a problem with the CMOS battery, since that is what powers the boot chain.”
An answer now deleted to K3o’s original comment, he says “sure, several users have the same situation after patching League with Vanguard, it must be the users fault. Everyone’s CMOS battery and motherboards decided to go to hell when Vanguard was released.”
K30 responds with “Vanguard is not affecting Ring -2/SMM level in this way, and would not be able to manipulate this step of the boot process. That said, if you have other cases, you can escalate them directly to me just to make sure there is nothing else related to us”
