{"id":659657,"date":"2026-05-23T02:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/659657\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T02:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:49:08","slug":"riot-claims-valorant-anti-cheat-software-isnt-bricking-pcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/659657\/","title":{"rendered":"Riot Claims Valorant Anti-Cheat Software Isn’t Bricking PCs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since it was first implemented into Valorant in 2020, Riot\u2019s anti-cheat software Vanguard has been fairly controversial<\/a>. Players have raised concerns about security, mid-game crashes, and the fact that Vanguard can somehow temporarily ban players from playing other games that aren\u2019t even developed by Riot<\/a>. Now, after a problematic update, Vanguard has found itself in hot water once again.<\/p>\n

Recently, Riot Games pushed an update that detects and disables DMA (or direct memory access) cheating tools used for Valorant, even when a Riot game isn\u2019t running or actively installed. Some players without DMA cards, who claim they\u2019ve never cheated, have also alleged that Vanguard is now falsely detecting cheating software and causing some serious PC problems.<\/p>\n

Riot stirred the pot early on Friday when it sent out a tweet bragging about the update with a photo of a bunch of \u201cbricked\u201d DMA cards that it deemed \u201c$6k paperweights.\u201d<\/p>\n

congrats to the owners of a brand new $6k paperweight https:\/\/t.co\/3rjZVQntrc<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/fS3JC0FL0p<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Riot Games (@riotgames) May 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Later, Riot clarified that Vanguard isn\u2019t actually bricking these devices. \u201cThrough our latest updates, Vanguard now makes those devices worthless for VAL, but does not in any way brick PCs or PC components or PC software,\u201d its new tweet read.<\/p>\n

While Riot has now clarified it was just joking about bricking devices, quite a few players are still concerned its anti-cheat tools are getting too aggro. Scroll through the Riot subreddit<\/a> right now, and you\u2019ll see that almost every recent post is a complaint about Vanguard. Obviously, the players who cheat via DMA are unhappy about these pricey tools being disabled in Valorant\u2014that\u2019s a given. But the most important part of all of this is that, despite Riot\u2019s claims, players who claim they haven\u2019t cheated at all say they are having issues with the new Vanguard update, too.<\/p>\n

Some are alleging that they\u2019ve been falsely banned or even forced to reinstall operating systems because of it.<\/p>\n

Well, that escalated quickly.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a wave of claims by cheaters about Vanguard \u201cbricking\u201d their PCs, so let\u2019s clear that up: Vanguard does not damage hardware or disable your devices.<\/p>\n

The photo we posted is a picture of cheat hardware devices that are sold explicitly\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/dXb75Z91k9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Riot Games (@riotgames) May 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah I never cheated ONCE in my whole life in any game , I don\u2019t even use Creative on my minecraft worlds, but my PC got bricked because of vanguard, had to Reset BIOS , Fresh install windows , lost all my stuff and hours of work because of it,\u201d one player wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing a routine cleanup of my PC and saw their anti-cheat flagged as potential malware in my registry entries. I don\u2019t play Riot games (I downloaded the client for a 2XKO demo at some point). When I uninstalled the Riot client and removed the registry entry, it bricked my OS. They can absolutely get fucked. I\u2019ll be joining whatever class action comes from this,\u201d another player wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was falsely banned. Had to contact riot dev to check and they fixed it\u2026 it can def happen,\u201d another wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the damage that these players are reporting can be reversed with a full OS reinstall, but if Vanguard really is the problem, that\u2019s still a concern.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond apparently banning players and temporarily causing PC-wide issues, the update is allegedly causing quite a few technical issues that are making Vanguard and Riot\u2019s games difficult to download and launch<\/a>. Other players have theorized that the Vanguard update might even be causing issues in other games. One player<\/a>, who complained about Overwatch not being able to launch alongside League of Legends, ran into graphics card issues that they presumed were caused by the update.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly didnt f*ck up just cheaters,\u201d they wrote.
Cheating in competitive games like Valorant is probably not great, and I get why developers want to implement anti-cheat software. If you don\u2019t want players to cheat in your game, don\u2019t let them cheat! But if what players are claiming about Vanguard is true, that\u2019s a pretty invasive way to try to prevent it. Maybe don\u2019t break their expensive hardware (and also the hardware of a bunch of innocent players) along the way?<\/p>\n