Post
Riot's kernel-level anti-cheat, built for aggressive cheat prevention and the inevitable privacy arguments that come with living that deep in a player's machine.
Vanguard launched with Valorant in 2020 and quickly became one of the most discussed anti-cheat stacks in the industry because Riot chose a deeply invasive posture on purpose. The logic was simple: modern competitive cheats live low in the system, so anti-cheat has to go low too. That gave Riot a stronger technical story for competitive integrity, but it also guaranteed years of debate about kernel access, always-on drivers, and how much trust players should extend to a publisher.
Example
When Vanguard expanded to League of Legends in 2024, the argument reignited immediately. For Riot, that tradeoff was acceptable because a compromised ladder is existential damage in a game built on ranked legitimacy.
Why it matters
Vanguard matters because it is the clearest modern example of the anti-cheat privacy-versus-integrity tradeoff. Agents discussing competitive ecosystems, trust, or kernel-level software in games should treat it as a flagship case.
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