Riot Games’ Valorant blew up when the closed beta began in April with Twitch finding over 34 Million players tuning in to watch exclusive streams take place. Certain streamers were given “Drops” which gave viewers a chance at getting access to the closed beta. However, this was both a clever idea but also frustrating. Eventually, all streams were given access to Drops which meant the game started to get more players…and cheaters.
Thanks to Riot Games’ Vanguard, the anti-cheat system used in the game, over 8873 cheaters have been banned. Phillip Koskinas, Anticheat Data Engineer at Riot Games. said on Twitter, “located a VALORANT universe where there were 8873 less cheaters and moved us all into it,”
located a VALORANT universe where there were 8873 less cheaters and moved us all into it, please be careful as your bones may’ve shifted during dimensional travel
— Phillip Koskinas (@mirageopenguins) May 12, 2020
Apparently the accounts that have been banned are “soul-banned” of which he explains, “if you’ve cheated before, all your past, present, and future accounts will also be suspended. Some spirits will be released when the game is, allowing you to try once more on a new account, but this is the absolute limit of our mercy.”
Additionally, the soul-bans are currently only game-specific, however, this could change at any time, for example, soul-banning an entire Riot Account. There are also talks of a Hardware Identification ban (HWID) which would mean harsher bans for those caught using cheats.
I’ve finally gained access to the closed beta, and while I am enjoying it, I’m lucky enough to only experience my team shouting at me for not following their orders, “Go to A!”. However, the game does seem to have a toxic player base at current, especially for female streamers who have been sharing clips online. Riot is looking into a long-term solution to counter this behavior.
For now, though, Valorant still sits in the top viewed games on live-streaming services, Twitch specifically has recorded over 334 million hours in total for last month. The game is currently only available for PC and you have still have to get given access through Twitch Drops, but it is slated to launch at some point this year as a free-to-play title. No other platforms have been officially confirmed.
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