League of Legends finally adds Vanguard anti-cheat, players claim it's broken their PCs

Anti-cheat software is supposed to make life easier, right? Well, we all know League of Legends doesn't do easy.

Riot Games has rolled out Vanguard to League of Legends, the kernel-level anti-cheat software which it also uses for VALORANT (which has proven to be controversial in its own right), but it seems to have done more damage to players than it intended to.

In addition to wiping off bots and banning cheaters, legitimate players are now reporting major issues with the game's performance.

League of Legends players report broken PCs after Vanguard update

Hot off the back of the update, players took to social media to claim that Vanguard had "bricked" their PCs, and others have revealed that the strain of the specs are too severe, causing PCs to break.

Multiple reports quickly popped up on Twitter and Reddit, causing a whirlwind of concern, and some were even uninstalling the Riot client before updating the game in a bid avoid the software's addition.

Vanguard does put a considerable strain on PCs, given that its client will always be running in the background of Riot's games, taking random screenshots to ensure there are no cheats detected, and worming its way into the deepest darkest files of your computer.

Riot Games answers back to Vanguard critics in League of Legends

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Following the catastrophic launch, Riot Games has now issued a statement on Reddit, where it claimed that the software launch has been successful, and those with issues fall into a minuscule minority.

"Overall, the rollout has gone well," Riot said. "We’re already seeing Vanguard functioning as intended. We’ve already seen a hard drop off of bot accounts in the usual places, and we will continue to monitor this.

"Since 14.9 went live, fewer than 0.03% of players have reported issues with Vanguard."

For that small host of players with problems relating to the update, the developers have now revealed that there are a number of troubleshooting fixes that will right Vanguard's wrongs, while those who have been fighting with bricking problems should contact player support.

Riot are insistent that the anti-cheat is working for everyone and should be accessible to all players. Still, the Vanguard anti-cheat does often find itself accused of being over-invasive with its screenshot system, and will likely continue to get some pushback.