One of the selling points of Riot's "Valorant" is that it does everything in its power to ensure a level playing field, and this includes actively banning cheaters. However, some have questioned just how aggressive Riot's anti-cheat software is: some of the company's Vanguard systems run at the kernel driver level, which means they start at Windows boot time and have more system privileges than normal user-level software This means that they have.

Riot has made some efforts to allay concerns, and today we have documented another by adding a Vanguard icon to the Windows system tray. This icon can be "fully disabled" or uninstalled by right-clicking on it; if Vanguard is disabled, the PC must be restarted before playing Valorant; if Vanguard is uninstalled, reinstall and restart to before playing.

Vanguard can already be removed in Windows settings just like any other program, so today's update just makes it a little easier to kill it when you don't want it on.

However, Riot has not changed its position on the need for kernel drivers; in a February blog post, the developer stated that cheats themselves are often executed at the kernel level, making them harder to detect by giving anti-cheat software limitations that cheat makers do not have . They also noted that anti-cheat programs EasyAntiCheat, Battleye, and Xigncode3 already use kernel drivers like Vanguard's. Riot writes, "This isn't even news." (Always Sunny's title card: "The gang's anti-cheat software is news.")

As part of his response to concerned players, Riot recently reaffirmed what he said in February: they are not stealing recipes.

"The Vanguard driver does not collect or send back to us any information about your computer; when Valorant is running, the non-driver component of Vanguard scans for cheats.

As another way to smooth things over, Riot has set a $100,000 bounty for "a quality report demonstrating a working exploit that leverages the Vanguard kernel driver."

Chamberlain also made a suggestion for honest players who are blocked by anti-cheat software today: if Vanguard detects a "security vulnerability that cheats can exploit," they may not be able to play Valorant is a problem, he said; Riot is working to provide more information, Chamberlain said, but for now, if there is a problem, "you may need to update some insecure software or drivers."

Valorant received a big patch today. It is still in closed beta, but at this rate it doesn't look like it will be long before it goes live.