Vanguard for Valorant remains the best anti-cheat to this day

A custom anti-cheat developed by Riot Games for their tactical fps shooter, Valorant, currently remains the most secure anti-cheat. Vanguard launched with Valorant back in 2020 and was kernel-level protection from cheaters that were plaguing other popular competitive titles like Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, PUBG, and others.

No one expected Vanguard to be this effective against cheaters who received instant bans mid-game, which also cancelled the match. The anti-cheat did see itself in controversy regarding privacy, as kernel-level anti-cheat has full access to the system.

It was, however, short-lived, as players were ready to sacrifice privacy in order to get rid of the cheating problem in their games. Vanguard was so effective that League of Legends has also shifted to the new anti-cheat, and the results were apparent very quickly.

That isn’t to say there aren’t any cheaters in Valorant, but the numbers have greatly declined because as soon as a cheater is marked the anti-cheat is updated to remove similar cheats. By passing, a kernel-level anti-cheat is also a hassle which isn’t worth waiting time for cheat makers. This is similar to Denuvo for single-player games.

Also Read: Valorant is moving to Unreal Engine 5, Will this affect players?

Other anti-cheats struggling to keep up

Other companies have also started implementing kernel-level anti-cheats, but they are still not as effective as Vanguard. Ricochet by Activision also falls in the same category, and while the numbers may have lowered, cheating is still a problem across the game, specifically in Warzone Battle Royale mode.

We’d tell you how Vanguard works, but the process is kept secret to avoid cheating to figure out the anti-cheat. Do note that, unlike other kernel-level anti-cheats which only work when the game is running, Vanguard runs as soon as the player turns on the system and will remain active regardless of Valorant being active. Players can also turn off Vanguard, but in order to play the game, they will need to reboot the PC.