VALORANT to Rollback RR in Games with Cheaters; Update Vanguard in Act 2
A hacker on the enemy team is every VALORANT player's worst nightmare — nobody wants to face off against the default banner opponent named "Her Jett" who spins like a helicopter and hits headshots through walls. Luckily, S25 Act 2 will feature RR Rollbacks which will refund players for any RR lost in a match where cheaters are detected. In addition, Vanguard has hit a new ban record and Riot Games team members are explaining how they plan to continue developing the software to suit evolving anti-cheat needs. Here's everything we know about what players can expect from VALORANT's anti-cheat updates.
VALORANT's Vanguard Anti-Cheat: New Bans-Per-Second Record
Riot's Head of Anti-Cheat and member of Vanguard's data analysis team Phillip Koskinas @deteccphilippe recently took to X.com to address cheating concerns, assess Vanguard's performance and explain what's in store for the title.
Koskinas began by saying a recent wave of cheaters had taken the game by surprise: "You weren’t hallucinating—there were definitely more cheaters over the last few weeks, but we’re thrilled to announce that they are rapidly falling back down to optimal levels." He elaborated that part of the issue was due to the holiday season putting anti-cheat updates and hotfixes on pause. As hackers' techniques evolve, equal effort is required by the Riot Games team to adapt the system. Cheaters noticed and exploited this lull, and Koskinas stated, "While we were at reduced capacity, the cheaters that weren’t immediately detected started multiplying, a lot like a brainless pathogen."
In an attached graph, Koskinas delivered data indicating a significant spike in VALORANT cheating during December 2024 and January 2025. This data was also regionally separated, and Brazil was by far the most represented server location. In early January 2025, over 10% of Brazilian VALORANT matches included at least one cheater. It's important to note that this data only represents occasions where cheaters were caught and matches terminated, so the actual figure could be higher.
After Riot Games' regular updates resumed, the amount of cheaters harshly declined. As of the report, Koskinas confirms that "the percentage of ranked games with a cheater [is] back down below 1% globally."
Brazil reportedly claimed the highest cheater counts due to regional 'pixelbot' cheats which adjusts mouse movements through the player's PC. These were quite easy for Riot Games to address. North America poses a slightly more challenging threat with "expensive DMA hardware cheating", but Riot Games developers have also identified ways to ban offenders and, interestingly enough, occasionally drop in on these hackers' discords to harvest "the sweetest dopamine on this green Earth" during ban waves. The team is also targeting Turkey's internet cafes, where many computers have cheats pre-installed.
Riot Games' crackdowns appear to be effective. The team revealed that Vanguard hit a new ban record in January 2025, reaching 7 suspensions a minute. This milestone occurred from January 10 to January 13. In addition, the average cheater only played through 6 matches before being detected.
Koskinas reassured players of the anti-cheat team's intention to keep updating Vanguard, saying:
Rest assured that we’re on the case, and we will continue fighting for your right to a game that’s free from players that don’t want to play it fairly. It might get a little rough from time to time, but we will never give up.
- Phillip Koskinas
RR Rollbacks in VALORANT S25 Act 2
Koskinas notes that many hackers have "realized that they can’t play undetected, so they cheat as hard as possible for the few games they have before each suspension." To combat this issue, Riot Games is rolling out a long-awaited update in S25 Act 2: Ranked Rollbacks will refund RR lost to players in games with cheaters. In addition, players will gain access to a "mailbox" upon login including the names of every verified cheater they've reported.
How do the VALORANT Ranked Rollbacks work?
Usually, if a cheater is detected in VALORANT the match will fade into a bright red "CHEATER DETECTED" screen and the match will end without any RR loss or gain to either team. However, after the Ranked Rollback update, players will gain back any RR lost from recent games including a player later found to be cheating.
Will I lose my RR if a player on my team is detected as cheating later?
Players will not lose any RR from matches where they randomly queued into a game with a cheater on their team. However, players who deliberately queue with a cheater will be banned.
