Valorant: How to fix the ‘Required Dependency’ error

Apart from its immense popularity, Riot Games’ tactical, first-person shooter Valorant, is also known for something else, and that is bugs and in-game error codes.

Ever since the beta release in April, players had to face one annoying bug after another, until Riot started patching each of them out.

Although, with the official launch on the 2nd of June, the devs were able to wipe out most of the bugs and errors that plagued the beta version. It now seems that some new ones have appeared in their stead.

And one such popular issue that Valorant is facing at the moment is the ‘Required Dependency’ error. It’s generally popping on those players’ screens, who have either recently downloaded the game, or upgraded Valorant to the latest patch version.

What causes the error?

The error comes with the message, 'We couldn’t install a required dependency'.

So it’s pretty safe to say that the issue is primarily caused by an installation problem with Valorant, specifically Vanguard. Vanguard is the kernel-level anti-cheat for the game and is also the first necessary thing that your PC needs to have to run Valorant.

A faulty installation of the software is one of the major issues behind this error.

How to fix the ‘Required Dependency’ error in Valorant

To fix the ‘Required Dependency’ error, you will first need to uninstall Vanguard from either Vanguard Tray icon, or from the ‘Add/Remove’ section in your control panel.

If you have found the tray icon, then uninstalling the software is incredibly easy; just right-click and select the uninstall option.

However, if the tray icon is not available to you then here are the steps that you need to take when uninstalling from the ‘Add / Remove Programs’ wizard:

• Go to your control panel and click on the option, ‘Programs and Feature.’
• Search for Riot Vanguard, and select it.
• Then click on uninstall, and wait for the process to complete.
• Once the uninstallation is complete, download and install the latest Vanguard version form the official Riot website.
• Restart your computer, and start the game again, but this time in administrator mode.
• If the issue persists, uninstall, and install the entire game once again.
• If all of the above steps fail, then you will just have to contact Riot Support.

An old version of Windows (probably 8, 8.1, and 7) can also the be the cause of the issue here; however, it’s not confirmed by the players facing this issue.