Riot Games began rolling out a new optional "on-demand" mode for its Vanguard anti-cheat software on June 25, allowing it to run only while League of Legends or Valorant are active instead of constantly in the background [1, 2].
In on-demand mode, Vanguard’s driver will not start automatically when the system boots. Instead, it launches with the game and terminates once the player exits, reducing the software's continuous presence on users’ machines [1, 2, 3]. Riot's head of anti-cheat, Phillip Koskinas, said, "On-demand here means that Vanguard’s driver component will no longer launch when the system starts, but 'secured' indicates that this will be possible only if that system’s hardware has met a set of modern security requirements" [3].
To qualify for on-demand mode, players must run Windows 11 25H2 or later with several security features enabled. These include UEFI Mode, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI), and IOMMU support [1, 2, 3]. Approximately 35% of Riot’s player base already meet these requirements and can opt in immediately after the update goes live [1, 2, 3]. About 65% must manually enable these security features to take advantage of the on-demand mode [1, 2]. A smaller segment, roughly 3%, run hardware too old to meet the criteria and will need to upgrade their systems [3].
Phillip Koskinas emphasized that use of on-demand mode is not compulsory. "You only need to do anything if you’d like to enable on-demand mode, which will allow Vanguard to launch when the game does and remain running only while you’re playing a Riot title," he said [1].
Riot developed this new mode in cooperation with Microsoft's Xbox OS Security Team to strengthen Windows kernel security against cheats [1].
The update follows Riot’s announcement on June 24 that on-demand sessions for Vanguard would become available starting June 25 [3]. Eligible players can now choose to switch to on-demand mode through their software settings.
