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The launch of the League of Legends Vanguard anti-cheat system has not been smooth. It faced widespread user complaints about system crashes and unauthorized system modifications.
Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare, a well-known League content creator, reported that the update ‘bricked’ two of his computers and cautioned players to ‘be wary of this Vanguard update’.
Update the other pc in my house also bricked now.
Be afraid of this vanguard update, what the fuck is this
— LS (@LSXYZ9) May 1, 2024
Despite these complaints, Riot Games maintains that there have been no confirmed cases of the Vanguard system damaging any user hardware.
Introduced in the League of Legends patch 14.9, Vanguard has been under scrutiny since it started causing disruptions on April 30.
The future is here and so is Patch 14.9 🔮
🥋 Lee Sin Art and Sustainability Update!
🏆 MSI kicks off
🥊 Arena: Round ThreeLee Sin’s ASU, MSI kicks off, and round 3 of Arena begins! https://t.co/nHtjZBlnp6 pic.twitter.com/VixkR0oWVI
— League of Legends (@LeagueOfLegends) April 30, 2024
Riot responded swiftly, suggesting users check for other potential hardware problems, which has met with mixed reactions from the community. Some suggested that Vanguard can take screenshots of users’ whole screen.
Matt ‘K30’ Paoletti, Riot’s senior anti-cheat analyst, clarified in a recent Reddit update that less than 0.03% of players have experienced issues with Vanguard. He emphasized that most problems are identifiable error codes that can be resolved through standard support channels.
Riot is denying that Vanguard is bricking people's PCs, and any kind of Vanguard discussion is banned from the sub.
It's tampering with unrelated files, preventing startup programs from booting, causing other programs to crash, etc.
All this was known and they still launched. https://t.co/cTWWmPioIh pic.twitter.com/PO6NW6kpGJ
— Yasukeh (@Yasubro) May 1, 2024
He also addressed concerns about hardware compatibility, particularly regarding TPM 2.0 requirements for Windows 11 users. He explained that adjustments might be necessary in the BIOS settings but assured that Vanguard itself does not modify BIOS settings.
Further addressing privacy concerns, Paoletti noted that while Vanguard does capture certain game-related images to monitor for cheats, it does not capture images from the entire computer or multiple monitors.
This practice, he assured, is standard among anti-cheat systems and complies with all relevant privacy regulations, having been vetted by information security and compliance teams to ensure it does not violate user privacy.
