League of Legends’ Vanguard anti-cheat finally gets the option to only run when you fire up a game, as Riot roll out “on-demand sessions” for “sufficiently secured” PCs
Riot Games has introduced an optional “on-demand” mode for Vanguard, their anti-cheat software used in League of Legends and Valorant. Under the new feature, Vanguard will only activate when players launch a game requiring it, then automatically shut down upon exit. Previously, Vanguard’s only option was to start at PC boot and run continuously in the background throughout the entire session.
The change addresses long-standing player concerns about the invasiveness of always-on kernel-level anti-cheat monitoring. The on-demand sessions are being rolled out exclusively to “sufficiently secured” PCs that meet Riot’s security criteria, ensuring the system maintains integrity while respecting player preferences for reduced background monitoring.
This development represents a significant concession from Riot regarding player privacy and system resource management, offering a middle ground between security requirements and user experience considerations.