In Valorant, the controversial anti-cheat program Vanguard (vdk.sys) is at work. However, the software seems to be very sensitive and has kicked a presumably innocent professional player from the game due to an extremely trivial action.
What happened? The Counter-Strike professional Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas, who particularly stood out as a sniper, wanted to try out the beta of the new team shooter Valorant. He launched the game and played a round. Then he was suddenly kicked from the game and could not get back in.
The culprit was the notorious anti-cheat software of Valorant. It had detected suspicious behavior from mixwell.
Charging phone leads to ban
What did the player do? The suspicious behavior that led to the ban was nothing serious. Mixwell had simply connected his smartphone to the PC to charge it. The anti-cheat software Vanguard seemingly registered this as suspicious behavior and reacted immediately.
Perplexed, mixwell reported the incident on Twitter and asked Riot to please unlock him for the game again. After all, he wanted to continue playing Valorant! On Twitter and reddit, mixwell’s dilemma received a lot of responses. One user only dryly noted, “Just charge your phone using the socket like everyone else.” However, it seemed that other players had experienced similar situations, and the discontent was significant.
How did the situation with mixwell end? By now, Riot Games is said to have responded and resolved the issue. It turned out to be a mistake of the anti-cheat software, and there was never a ban.
Only the software apparently froze, and if vdk.sys is not running, Valorant cannot start either. Nevertheless, the incident was fuel for the opponents of Riot’s anti-cheat software.
Why is the anti-cheat program so controversial? Indeed, the latest incident is another reason why many players distrust Riot Games’ anti-cheat system. The program Vanguard embeds itself with the kernel driver vdk.sys deep in the system and starts when the computer is booted.
Although Riot has always emphasized that the software only looks for cheat software and neither collects nor shares data, many users do not like that opaque programs are actively running in the system without control.
Do you want more bizarre bugs from Valorant? Recently, there was a bizarre bug in Riot’s new team shooter that allowed players to shoot through walls and take out unsuspecting opponents. Read here what it was all about and how it ended.
