League of Legends Responds to Claims of Vanguard Bricking PCs

A League of Legends developer addressed rumors alleging that the Vanguard anti-cheat system was bricking players' PCs. The rollout of the Vanguard system, developer Riot Games' custom kernel-level anti-cheat software, has been controversial for the game's player base since it was revealed it would be implemented into its massively popular MOBA. Fans' fears only intensified when several users reported encountering problems with Vanguard, with some claiming they could no longer even boot their systems after League of Legends' latest patch.

For context, kernel-level anti-cheat systems like Vanguard do just what their name implies. These systems detect and routinely stop third-party programs using authorizations that run as deep as the core of a computer's operating system, known as the kernel. Though intended to stop cheaters and other bad actors, players have been understandably hesitant to install a program with so much access to their personal computers. Fans only grew apprehensive after online users reported the new features for League of Legends in Patch 14.9 were harming their system's stability.

In response to rumors, Riot Games anti-cheat manager Matthew «Riot K3o» Paoletti posted an update to the League of Legends subreddit, stating there were no confirmed instances of Vanguard outright bricking a user's PC. Still, he encouraged players to keep an eye out for bugs when playing League of Legends and send a message to player support if they required assistance. Regarding previous reports of bricked PCs, Paoletti further clarified they had solved a few of the major threads that reported similar incidents and confirmed Vanguard was not the root cause of the issue.

The team manager additionally touched upon worries regarding Vanguard's screenshot reporting system, with Paoletti assuring players the anti-cheat system does not take a screenshot of the entire OS or other monitors when activated. The system is only designed to capture a screenshot of a game client in