Riot’s Vanguard runs only during League or VALORANT play

Riot Games introduced Vanguard On-Demand on June 25, 2026. The optional mode launches the Vanguard anti-cheat only when League of Legends or VALORANT are started and shuts the service down after a player exits the game.

Under the new mode, Vanguard’s kernel-level driver will no longer start automatically with Windows by default. Players who prefer the always-on arrangement can keep the anti-cheat running continuously, as On-Demand is optional.

On-Demand requires Windows 11 version 25H2 or later and several platform security features: UEFI Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI) and IOMMU. According to Riot, these features help ensure the anti-cheat can be loaded and protected safely when it is not resident in memory between sessions.

Riot introduced a Vanguard Pre-Check utility that verifies whether a PC meets the necessary criteria before On-Demand can be enabled. The company also updated VGTray, its system-tray utility; if a user attempts to enable On-Demand without meeting requirements, VGTray will list missing features, indicate where firmware settings can be changed and link to official support documentation.

Riot estimates roughly 35% of players will meet the requirements out of the box because many modern PCs and default Windows 11 installations already enable the needed features. Other users may need to enable Secure Boot, TPM or virtualization options in their motherboard firmware (BIOS/UEFI) or update Windows to the required version.

On-Demand currently applies only to League of Legends and VALORANT. Riot has not announced plans to extend the mode to other titles. Players who want to use On-Demand should run Vanguard Pre-Check and follow the company’s support guidance for enabling platform features.

Earlier, we reported that Grinding Gear Games added an Atlas Passive skill tree in Path of Exile 2 patch 0.5.4.