Riot has announced that League of Legends will switch to Vanguard, the controversial anti-cheat system that has only been used in Valorant so far.
Vanguard is coming to League of Legends. Riot Games has revealed that the anti-cheat system, which has been used in Valorant since day one, is coming to their popular MOBA. This will happen within the next few months.
LoL: Anti-Cheat Is Switching To Vanguard
In the big "Season 2024 Look Ahead" video, Riot revealed a ton of new info on the upcoming season in League. This included the fact, that the game's anti-cheat system will change to Vanguard, Riot's unique system which was developed in the company's tactical shooter Valorant.
The change is supposed to occur within the next two months and the system is supposed to work the same way as it does in Valorant. Once this change has been implemented, installing Vanguard will be required to play LoL.
"In late February or early March, we're bringing Vanguard to League. We've seen a huge amount of success in their ability to catch and stop cheaters in their games, and we expect to see similar results when we implement it in League."
Vanguard is supposed to be a lot more effective in catching bots and cheaters. According to the announcement, it also allows Riot to "hardware ban offenders and terminate matches in which a cheater is detected".
The anti-cheat system has been controversial around the release of Valorant. Vanguard works on the kernel level, which is a deeper level of your computer's system than previous anti-cheat software programs have operated on. This raised privacy concerns and also led to claims, that Vanguard is negatively effecting PC performance.
Riot promises, that "Vanguard does not collect or process any personal information differently from our current anti-cheat software. We don't need or want to know anything more about you or your machine other than what is necessary to maintain integrity when playing our games."