Riot banned more than 8,500 cheaters from VALORANT

Riot Games isn’t taking the prospect of cheaters easily. They’re being quite aggressive in their strategies of preventing abuses to their new FPS, VALORANT. As a result, the game’s developers have banned a total of 8,873 cheaters over the first month since the game first released in closed beta. This comes from Riot’s anti-cheat data engineer Philllip Koskinas.

Addressing the problem of cheaters

Kokinas said, “Located a VALORANT universe where there were 8,873 less cheaters and moved us all into it, please be careful as your bones may’ve shifted during dimensional travel.”

The problem with using Vanguard

Riot is using anti-cheat detection tech known as Vanguard, though it’s been something of a topic of controversy during the release of VALORANT. It is meant to provide significant levels of protection and stop malicious software from working. But instead, it’s caused myriad other issues. This ranges from frequent disconnects to driver problems to frame drops. All of this has created significant outrage in the community.

Still, despite the negative feedback, the software is quite clearly doing its job. It uses Fog of War and server authoritative movement netcode alongside player reports, data analysis, and machine learning research to identify and single out cheaters. They are then banned and removed from the game. These first nearly 9,000 bans are but the start, according to Riot’s K3o.

The problem of cheating in FPS games

Cheating is a big problem when it comes to tactical shooters like VALORANT and CS:GO. But if Riot can continue making tweaks to Vanguard and make it more reliable, VALORANT could only stand to succeed.

VALORANT is currently in closed beta for North America, Europe, Brazil, LATAM, and Korea. Riot plans on extending to additional regions in the months to come. The full game is expected to release in its final version this summer.

Ryan Goodrich

Ryan has been writing since long before he could even write. He's written resumes, software user guides, consumer electronic reviews, and myriad web content spanning a variety of industries. But now he's writing about video games, which is much more interesting.

View all posts