As you might know, Vanguard is Riot's kernel-level anti-cheat system, originally developed for Valorant and soon to be implemented into League of Legends.
There are multiple reasons why I think they should reconsider their choice, both in terms of security and compatibility/accessibility, but I intend to focus on compatibility and explain why it's not like other popular anti-cheats.
As many of you know, one of the requirements for Vanguard on Windows 11 is to have the Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 on your processor. The TPM is a chiplet that acts as a vault for your sensitive data like passwords, encryption keys, fingerprints and other biometric data.
As to why this is a requirement for an anti-cheat system, I don't know, especially if we consider that no other anti-cheat needs it, but this isn't what I wanted to talk about.
The issue at hand is that version 2.0 of TPM is only present on Intel processors from the 8th generation onward and on AMD processors from Ryzen 1xxx onward.
According to the data, 14.66% of computers currently in use don't have TPM 2.0, which means that a consistent number of players will just be forced off League. To put it into perspective, one and a half player in each lobby will be gone.
Currently, the only way to avoid this limitation is using Windows 10, which is planned to go end of life by 2025.
After that, you either jump aboard the e-waste train and dump your computer, or you say goodbye to the 14 years spent on League.
Another requirement for Vanguard is Secure Boot.
Secure boot is a security protocol introduced a few years back by Microsoft in EFI motherboards that prevents unsigned kernel modules from being run on boot.
I'm assuming this is needed to prevent cheaters from tampering with kernel modules, although anti-cheats shouldn't care about that stuff because if any of those tampered modules were trying to interact with the game, they would be detected anyway. And in case you were wondering, no, you can't put cheats inside your Nvidia drivers because your GPU won't accept them if they're not signed by Nvidia.
The issue with this is, again, compatibility. Two kinds of people are gonna be affected by this: people whose computer doesn't support Secure Boot and people who can't enable Secure Boot due to their software requirements. Do you use any other firmware that isn't signed with Microsoft's keys? Too bad, no Secure Boot = no League. This, obviously, includes dual-booting Linux, BSD or any other operative system.
Did you know that many jobs that handle sensitive information require by contract that you do not install software that has kernel access on your computer?
It doesn't matter how careful you are, it doesn't matter if you're the best cybersecurity expert in the world, as long as you have a third party software with kernel access on your computer, your own security is not in your hands. All things considered, I think many people will prefer keeping their job rather than playing League of Legends.
It's not only about jobs though. A lot of people actually use their PC for their personal matters and not just as a gaming machine. Or for other games that are not Valorant and League.
Having a software that entirely monopolizes your device shouldn't be required for a game; if you used to play League because it was an easily accessible and lightweight game to play in your spare time with your friends or by yourself, you're probably gonna reconsider your choices and switch to Minecraft.
TFT will require Vanguard as well, which makes even less sense because there's no way to cheat in TFT.
And here's the key difference between Vanguard and other anti-cheat systems: it has to be autostarted on boot and run in the background even when you're not playing. If at any point you close Vanguard, you won't be able to launch the game anymore, and just launching Vanguard again will not be enough; you'll have to reboot your entire system so that Vanguard is started on boot.
For most people, this is a hassle. What if I'm downloading something? Using my PC as a server? Compiling some software? Doing whatever other activity that would be interrupted by a reboot?
To make it short, my computer isn't a League-machine, it's a computer that I occasionally use for League.
And think about this: what if all anti-cheat software started being like Vanguard? Would you enjoy having four different anti-cheats running in the background, and micromanaging all of them, rebooting each time you want to switch game? I'll pass.
As we've seen with Valorant, Vanguard is actually pretty heavy. And since it needs to be loaded right on boot, along with your drivers and all your important stuff, it will slow down your computer.
The performance degradation is already noticeable on high-end hardware (including some system instability as well) but it would definitely make many people's 12yo laptop just die on the spot. Oh right, they can't play anyway because they don't have TPM 2.0.
But if you think about it, most of League's playerbase is made of casual players who turn on their laptop one evening, message their friend saying "Bro will you play Yuumi for me in Arena while I play Master Yi", then play one game and go to bed. Vanguard would make the game a lot less accessible for them.
And, as I previously mentioned, what if multiple anti-cheats started being like Valorant?
In a recent comment, Riot Brightmoon mentioned that the MacOS version of League won't require Vanguard, as its ecosystem is "substantially different". As a matter of fact they can't implement a kernel level anti-cheat simply because MacOS doesn't allow anything (other than its base drivers and modules) to run at kernel level. I wonder if there's a reason for that? Anyway.
I can think of another OS that doesn't allow anything to run at kernel level, but its players won't be able to play it due to Vanguard. Yeah, you guessed it, Linux.
Linux currently runs the Windows version of League under Wine/Proton, and it's also pretty good at that: in fact, in-game performance tends to be sligtly higher and the client doesn't have the typical freezes and slowdowns that it has on Windows.
But for it to work after Vanguard is implemented, Riot would have to add an exception for Wine/Proton that disables their anti-cheat when running on Linux. A rioter already said that they won't do that for security reasons. There goes the Linux userbase as well.
As a side note, other anti-cheats like EAC and BattlEye work on Linux, although they don't run at kernel level for obvious reasons.
Lastly, many people play League through cloud services like GeForce Now, and as you might know, those services run their games on a virtual machine. Virtual machines, being it remote or local ones, are also blocked by Valorant. Those users will also be unable to play League.
This is one of the most debated parts. Vanguard, like all other software that runs with elevated privileges, is a security issue. Not only it increases the potential attack surface for hackers and malware in general, but it relies on security through obscurity. This means that they trust that people won't be able to breach through it because no one knows how it works exactly.
All it takes is one single source code leak (which already happened in the past) and all computers that run Vanguard are compromised. I'm sure they're gonna keep it safe in a vault protected by Smolder's mom, but there's always a small chance.
I'm not gonna go into conspiracy theories about Tencent or China because they're mostly baseless, but just know that if they wanted, they could send your "Homework" folder to your granny. Or watch you through your webcam. Or log your keypresses. They're not gonna do it because they don't care and it would be the end for them if someone found out.
Scripters and cheaters are definitely an issue in most online games, we can all agree on that. Not so much on League because they're pretty rare and they can be recognized (and reported) easily, but it still disrupts your experience.
Having an anti-cheat that runs only while you're playing the game is acceptable, but this doesn't mean that you should forfeit your computer and all your mortal possessions to Riot Games or any other company that implements an invasive anti-cheat.
I think it's important that they know which boundaries they should not pass, and how many compromises we're willing to make to play a game.
Will people keep playing League even if Vanguard is implemented? Yeah, it always ends up like that, just like it happened with the Reddit protests. Although in this specific case, a good amount of people just won't be able to play even if they wanted. Personally, I care about League enough to make this whole wall of text, but not enough to keep playing after Vanguard is implemented.
My hope is that a rioter will read this and go "You know what, maybe he's right, maybe Vanguard isn't necessary, we can find another way".
If anyone got to this point, thank you for the read, see you on the Rift, maybe.