It’s no small subject matter at the moment in the gaming industry; while Riot’s hot new competitive shooter Valorant is absolutely making waves that could have long term effects on how competitive games are viewed and developed, there’s a darker side to it.
That darker side that we’re discussing is of course Riot Vanguard, the 0-Ring included anti-cheat that has maximum control over your PC. It’s always on, it causes stuttering in other games not even remotely related to Riot, and a malicious entity successfully gaining access to the software could easily result in a massive bot-net that could cause absolute havoc that would be difficult to reign in.
Its reach has spawned countless arguments and debates (wildly different things) online, and the cheating in Valorant doesn’t appear to be stemming anytime soon, leading everyone to wonder what the actual purpose of granting Riot unmitigated access to our systems is all about.
Not that Riot isn’t actively working to stop the cheats, but more so that it has been arguably ineffective thus far for the level of access that it has.
Further, the concerns with ESEA being caught mining Bitcoin with users PCs in the past with a miner that was packaged in their anti-cheat (which was similarly trusted due to its high-level of PC oversight), and fans could be well forgiven for being abundantly cautious with Riot Vanguard.
Yet it seems as though Vanguard itself is dealing with some issues. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Mixwell was kicked out of a Valorant match on-stream when the anti-cheat threw an error after Mixwell connected his phone to the PC for charging.
It’s important to note that this is a professional player for Counter-Strike; the possibility that he somehow had a hack program side-loaded onto his phone to push a package to the Valorant executable is absurdly low, as it would irreversibly harm his career. Granted, it wouldn’t be the first time a public figure did something stupid, but it seems so implausible that it isn’t possible.
After a Twitch clip was posted to Reddit, many other users began experimenting with plugging things into their PC during a Valorant match, and the vast majority reported that it results in the anti-cheat throwing an error, and them needing to restart Valorant entirely. The screen shows an error; users are not being banned for connecting things into their PC, but it does show that Riot’s Vanguard at least has the ability to read when technology is being plugged into USB.
