Less than a week after Riot rolled out League of Legends’ polarizing new anti-cheat software, the developer has publicly responded to claims of PCs being bricked by the program.
Three days ago Riot rolled out a new anti-cheat software called Vanguard as part of League of Legends Patch 14.9. The developer wrote in the patch notes that the software would ensure that League of Legends’ “queues are free from scripters, botters, and cheaters!”
Unfortunately, some League of Legends players have reported that after the patch was installed, some users have turned to social media, particularly Reddit, claiming that their PC has been bricked as a result of the new anti-cheat software added to League of Legends.
In a statement posted on the League of Legends subreddit, a Riot Games spokesperson posted a lengthy update on the rollout of Vanguard in the game. This includes addressing the claims that Vanguard was bricking hardware. However, Riot claimed that it could not “confirm” any reports of Vanguard bricking people’s PC gaming rigs.
“At this point in time, we have not confirmed any instances of Vanguard bricking anyone’s hardware, but we want to encourage anyone who’s having issues to contact Player Support so we can look into it and help out,” Riot wrote. “We’ve individually resolved a few of the major threads you may have seen so far of users claiming this with their machines and have confirmed that Vanguard wasn’t the cause of the issues they were facing.”
Riot also provided a few troubleshooting examples as to why people may have encountered issues, such as stating that some users may need to troubleshoot their hardware to fix the issue — specifically noting that some users may need to enable Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and TPM 2.0 to circumvent the issue.
Update: after taking out CMOS battery and resetting battery was able to finally get into BIOS and fix PC w/ Vanguard running (you need UEFI and TPM2.0 both enabled in BIOS or your PC wont load). Other computer still bricked though. https://t.co/f6aWHUYDHk
— H. Baker (@LSXYZ9) May 1, 2024 One user on X/Twitter pointed out that it managed to get their PC running again after enabling UEFI and TPM 2.0 on one PC, but the other computer “is still bricked.”
Riot is not the only company having issues rolling out anti-cheat software. Other notable examples this year include Activision’s anti-cheat software shutting down a match in Call of Duty: Warzone if you enable aim assistance. Polygon reported last month that the Helldivers 2 anti-cheat software “has unintended consequences for legitimate players,” making the game borderline unplayable.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
