Riot Games reveals a significant drop in cheater reports in Valorant

Fariha Bhatti Published 18/10/2021

Riot Games has revealed a significant drop in cheater reports, but it is now battling a whole new breed of hackers.

Riot Games’ custom game security software Vanguard has always done a great job keeping hackers at bay. Compared to other shooters, cheaters in Valorant have always been less blatant because they get caught quickly. However, the growing popularity of Valorant has also increased the number of cheaters in the game. Fortunately, Riot Games has actively been dealing with these shady players.

In a recent blog post on the matter, senior anti-cheat analyst Matt “K30” Paoletti has revealed that the number of cheat reports has significantly gone down. Since Riot Games has always encouraged players to report suspicious accounts, the decrease likely means that Valorant no longer has as many hackers as before.

“Thanks to ongoing detection systems in place and, in part, to a previous rollout of meta-game system updates to Valorant’s ranked, the number of report rates for cheating are trending downward and are at the lowest they’ve ever been,” K30 said.

Riot Games currently employs Vanguard that runs while Valorant is active and uses a kernel-mode driver. However, it’s the developer’s proactive approach against hackers has led to a much cleaner competitive experience. Riot hasn’t only tackled cheaters who use third-party software but has devised similar punishments for account boosting, bussing, and other shady activities.

Hardware cheaters are coming to Valorant

While the devs have successfully shrunk the cheaters, a new threat still looms over Valorant. K30 has revealed that the anti-cheat system has managed to filter out ordinary hacks, so new cheaters are trying to break through the procedures.

The developer said that “hardware cheaters” are more advanced as they depend on an external piece of hardware to run functionally. The game has observed a spike in unique hacks as old ones can easily be detected by Vanguard.

Rest assured, Riot Games is already ahead in “the battle,” K30 has revealed. The developer is actively creating new ways to tackle advanced cheats and curate a better competitive experience for the players. With the upcoming acts and episodes, the developer aims to roll out superior Vanguard that would benefit from trailblazing security updates in order to keep the cheaters out of Valorant, K30 said.

Players should feel a visible shift in their ranked games in the recent games as there are fewer hackers, and anti-cheat continues to become stronger. The developer is in a “continual arms race” and is observing the new cheats to generate better protection.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

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