Valorant’s Vanguard anti-cheat won’t be the only thing stopping hackers in Riot’s new FPS title. Players will be able to ban hackers themselves, with Riot set on implementing a system like CS:GO’s Overwatch in Valorant post-launch.
Stopping cheaters from ruining games is an eternal struggle. However, Riot are committed to shutting it down in multiple ways with Valorant.
If their kernel-level anti-cheat, Vanguard, won’t shut hackers out of games, then Riot have a few more tricks up their sleeve.
They are taking inspiration from other games, and looking to bring players on board to help keep cheaters out of Valorant.
Valorant anti-cheat developer Paul ‘Arkem’ Chamberlain has mentioned that Riot is looking at implementing CS:GO’s Overwatch system in the game, but there’s a few hurdles to overcome.
- Read more: Can we trust Valorant’s anti-cheat?
“I definitely like CS:GO’s Overwatch system,” Arkem said on a April 20 Reddit post. “We’re hoping to build something like it, but it won’t be ready for the launch of our Ranked mode, and will have to wait until we’ve built a replay system.”
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Counter-Strike’s Overwatch system works by taking player reports, and sending replay files through to trusted users to analyze. They are completely anonymized, and you only get to watch gameplay from the perspective of “The Suspect.”
If a player gets enough guilty verdicts on Overwatch, they receive a ban. Overwatch users also get rewarded, with Valve issuing cases to players after a certain number, and ratio, of convictions.
A system like this though needs replays to look back onto, and that’s not something Valorant has yet. However, it’s on the horizon, and players might not have to wait too long to get another way to shut down cheaters.
Vanguard has come under criticism from players, after it was discovered the Valorant anti-cheat was always running in the background, even if you didn’t have the game open.
While Riot has assured players that it’s not a safety risk, the community has demanded Riot change it to only operate when Valorant is running.
Regardless of whether Riot changes Vanguard or not, it seems that they are committed to hunt down and banning cheaters — and they’re using every resource available to do so.