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Valorant’s anti-cheat software, Vanguard, is perhaps one of the most uncompromising anti-cheat solutions out there for any first-person shooter.
Not only was it able to garner the reputation of being incredibly sophisticated but the kernel-level software was also subjected to a lot of controversies.
However, no matter how many hardwares Vanguard fried or how many blue screens it showed over the course of Valorant’s lifespan, one thing was for certain - Riot Games' anti-cheat was incredibly effective.
Vanguard was the talk of the town throughout the entirety of the closed beta. However, with the problems that Ranked matchmaking is facing, discussions on Vanguard have now taken a backseat, and we have hardly heard much from the devs on the matter.
During the recent Ask Valorant #5, Valorant’s Anti-cheat Lead, Paul “Arkem” Chamberlain, took to the forum to update the fans on the latest in Vanguard.
Valorant’s Vanguard made 1802 manual bans
When asked:
“We haven’t heard much from you these days, just wondering how things are going. Can you tell us how many cheaters you’ve banned so far?”
Arkem replied:
“We've been toiling away in the anti-cheat mines but we've missed talking to you all. So far we've banned a bunch of cheaters (and their computers) from the game, and have generally tried to keep the miscreants out. We can always do better, but I think we're doing well overall. I don't have a total number of bans to share but I didn't want you to leave empty-handed so I brought something for you number fans out there: 1802”
1802 bans may be quite a lot but it’s quite nice to see that the devs are taking the competitive integrity of the game seriously and not waiting for ban waves to punish the cheaters.
Arkem even goes on to say:
"While the overwhelming majority of bans are automatically applied by Vanguard, me and the rest of the team manually review suspicious accounts. This helps us find previously unknown cheats and also lets us evaluate Vanguard's performance. It also gives us an opportunity to manually accelerate the ban for the most disruptive players."
Cheating in Valorant seems to be comparatively lesser when compared to the likes of CS: GO and Rainbow Six, and we hope that Vanguard will be able to keep this record even at the professional level.
