Riot Games Are Bricking Cheaters' PCs

Riot Games has responded to growing backlash surrounding its Vanguard anti-cheat system after online claims suggested a recent update was effectively rendering expensive cheating hardware useless.

The discussion exploded across social media after Riot publicly mocked a wave of blocked DMA cheating devices tied to VALORANT.

Following the update, Riot’s anti-cheat account posted an image of several banned devices alongside a joke calling them “$6k paperweights,” instantly sparking arguments over whether the company had crossed a line.

What actually happened with Vanguard and DMA devices?

The controversy centers around DMA hardware, specialized external devices used by some cheaters to bypass traditional anti-cheat systems.

Reports circulating online claimed the latest Vanguard update began targeting firmware commonly used by certain DMA setups, particularly devices associated with “Heino 2” hardware.

Several posts then claimed affected devices stopped functioning properly even after Vanguard was removed from the PC, leading to rumors that Riot was intentionally “bricking” hardware.

Some users alleged the only solution was reinstalling Windows entirely.

The situation escalated further when Riot anti-cheat staff continued joking publicly about blocked devices, with one developer posting that expensive DMA setups had become “bricks all over the floor.”

Players split over Riot’s aggressive anti-cheat approach

The backlash quickly divided the competitive gaming community.

Many VALORANT players praised Riot for aggressively targeting sophisticated cheating methods that have become increasingly common in competitive PC games.

Others argued that interfering with hardware behavior, even if tied to cheats, felt excessive.

Some viral posts accused Riot of going too far and questioned whether software should ever be capable of disabling hardware functionality under any circumstance.

At the same time, several engineers and anti-cheat analysts pushed back on the “bricking” claims, arguing the devices were simply being blocked by system-level security protections rather than physically damaged.

Riot says Vanguard is not damaging PCs

After the debate spiraled online, Riot Games released a lengthy clarification denying that Vanguard permanently damages hardware or destroys PCs.

According to Riot, the update works by enforcing standard platform protections tied to IOMMU security, which prevents DMA devices from accessing protected memory while games like VALORANT are running.

The company acknowledged that some cheat hardware may stop functioning correctly when those protections are enabled, but stressed that this behavior is tied to security enforcement rather than intentional hardware damage.

Riot also clarified that the earlier “paperweight” joke referred to cheat devices no longer working in Valorant specifically, not permanently destroyed hardware.

DMA cheating has become a growing problem

DMA-based cheating has become one of the biggest concerns in competitive PC gaming because the devices operate outside traditional software environments, making them much harder for normal anti-cheat systems to detect.

Riot Games has repeatedly positioned Vanguard as one of the industry’s most aggressive kernel-level anti-cheat systems, particularly within VALORANT.

The latest update appears to be another major step in Riot’s ongoing attempt to crack down on increasingly advanced cheat hardware, even if the company’s messaging around it has sparked controversy.