Riot Games has claimed that Vanguard, Valorant’s controversial anti-cheat, “would not and cannot” brick users’ PCs or affect system functionality in any way, following a wave of backlash that the company received as a result of one of its latest X posts.
The X post in question, which garnered immense backlash from the gaming community, saw Riot seemingly joking about bricking cheaters’ PCs, congratulating them on becoming “owners of a brand new $6k paperweight.”
The post sparked some serious frustration within the gaming community over Riot’s increasingly invasive anti-cheat measures, with many raising concerns about the implications of granting a game company the power to modify system firmware.
A few hours later, Riot Games walked back the post, clarifying that Vanguard is not capable of bricking users’ PCs in any way.
Riot Games’ Response to Vanguard’s PC Bricking Rumors
In a series of follow-up posts, Riot Games addressed the backlash directly, clarifying that Vanguard does not physically damage hardware or impact any software outside of its own games.
The company explained that the “paperweight” comment was specifically referring to DMA cheat devices that can no longer be used in Valorant, not users’ PCs as a whole.
For the unaware, DMA-based cheats are among the more sophisticated cheating methods, as they attempt to bypass traditional software detection by accessing memory directly through external hardware. Riot’s updated Vanguard essentially renders these devices useless within its titles.
“The ‘paperweight’ comment was about VALORANT cheat devices that no longer work in VALORANT,” Riot said in a statement, “No hardware is being damaged and no other functionalities are impacted.”
Riot also noted that users affected by the change who wish to continue using their DMA device in other titles can simply disable IOMMU in their BIOS settings. However, those devices will remain blocked from Riot’s games regardless.