Linux users will no longer be able to play League of Legends starting from Patch 14.4.
Instances of cheating have become quite rampant in League of Legends for the past couple of years. Especially last year, cases of cheating have gone up significantly. This is likely due to the social engineering attack Riot faced early in 2023. It affected the security of both League of Legends and TFT.
As a result, earlier this month, Riot announced that they would be overhauling its Anti-Cheat system. Starting from Patch 14.4, Riot will be switching to a new Anti-Cheat called Vanguard.
Vanguard is Riot Games’ proprietary Anti-Cheat first implemented in their First Person Shooter, VALORANT. It’s a kernel-level Anti-Cheat that has complete access to a user’s machine, allowing Riot to efficiently detect cheating software.
Even though Vanguard can deter cheaters, it does come with its own caveats. For starters, it provides Riot complete control over any user’s hardware, which raises serious privacy concerns.
Additionally, it does not support Linux-based operating systems. Though the number of Windows and Mac users heavily out weigh Linux users by a large margin, there are still a significant amount of players that still use the operating system. As a result, a lot of Linux users were quite worried about Riot moving to Vanguard.
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League of Legends Ceasing Support For Linux
In the latest League of Legends AMA, Riot clarified their stance on Linux and Vanguard.
According to Riot, one of their biggest concerns regarding the game is the rampant rise of cheaters/scripter/botters. With the implementation of Vanguard, Riot will be able to effectively address these problems.
However, implementing Vanguard means that Linux users will be unable to play the game. Although there was no official support for League of Legends for Linux previously, there were some workarounds for playing the game on Linux-based operating systems. But with the implementation of Vanguard, it will no longer be possible.
Regarding Riot implementing support for Linux-based operating systems, it seems there are no plans for such. So, players might have to wait quite a while for Riot to implement the feature.
For now, Linux users may need to move to Windows or give up on the game altogether.
