In an interview with VG247 at Evo 2024, 2XKO technical lead Tony Cannon confirmed that Riot Game’s upcoming fighting game will use the company’s own core-level anti-cheat software Vanguard.
Tony said: “A lot of the cheats we see in fighting games are about reading input, reading game state, or injecting input. They involve modifying the game binary in some way. Vanguard is really good at that, right? It’s kernel-level anti-cheat, so it can detect and prevent a lot of these things from happening.
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Vanguard was first implemented in Riot games in 2020 in Valorant and has since been implemented in League of Legends, with the hope that its addition will help address ongoing cheating and bot issues in the game. However, such software has proven controversial among some participants, in part due to the basic intrusive nature of kernel-level software.
For those who don’t know, basically, software running at the core level has the highest level of access to your system, your PC’s operating system. This can expose you to various privacy issues. Technical issues are also known to occur. During the launch of Vanguard in League of Legends, users with older versions of Windows or certain settings encountered issues. Some people even reported that it prevented their computers from booting, although Riot itself said it couldn’t confirm any such cases. From here you should understand where most of the worries come from.
When asked about his thoughts on privacy issues, Tony echoed Riot’s previous statements, stating outright that they do not and will not collect player data. “Vanguard runs in the core, right? But we don’t collect player information, read the app’s title bar… We don’t collect it, and we don’t send it. It’s very targeted and can detect cheating and prevent it.” People tamper with 2XKO binary.
Tony continued, “Companies that install kernel-level software have the potential to do these things, and we recognize that this is a problem. Valve has its own anti-cheat program, and cheat programs have become so sophisticated these days that they have to be installed in the kernel as well. So, right? So in order to protect every player’s experience, you have to work at the core level, so it’s like, you have to trust Riot at some point, but we’re definitely not interested in compromising players.
Our full interview with Tony Cannon dives into the differences between 2XKO’s server-based rollbacks and traditional point-to-point rollbacks, whether the addition of Vanguard will force 2XKO to stay online, and his thoughts on Riot’s foray into the competitive fighting game scene later today Time to go online. If you want to learn more, check back soon!
For those keen to play the game for themselves, 2XKO will be running its first public alpha playtest, and you can sign up now.
