Riot has responded to player complaints about its new anti-cheat system for Valorant.

As reported by Kotaku, those who download the beta for the new title also install Riot Vanguard, anti-cheat software that works around the clock.

Taking to Reddit, some users expressed their disdain at being forced to have such a programme on their computers with no off switch.

"You have a piece of software that can't be turned off, that runs with elevated privileges non-stop on your system," said Reddit user Voidox.

"Let's say the anti-cheat gets compromised tomorrow. You won't know that your computer is exposed and it won't update until you start the game. It should be made very clear that this is something that the game does, and at the very least should be something togglable."

Anti-cheat head for Riot Paul "RiotArkem" Chamberlain explained that the new driver is just one "small component." There is a new backend that allows the company to perform checks based on player reports.

"The anti-cheat driver itself is only one small component of Vanguard," said Chamberlain.

"We've also built a new backend that allows us to be more specific with our anti-cheat checks, instead of running the same security scans on all computers, we can run checks in response to player reports, or other suspicious behaviour which allows us to reduce the frequency and intensity of scans on the majority of players' computers."

Chamberlain insists that several outlets for security weaknesses have audited the new anti-cheat software. Valorant players do not trust the latest software, if it was to be cracked, then all those who have it installed will be vulnerable to a variety of attacks.

However, Chamberlain has noted that the driver doesn't connect to the internet.

"All of Vanguard has been audited for security weaknesses by external audit firms as well as our internal security team, with a particular emphasis being placed on the kernel component," said Chamberlain.

"We've built it on a principle of 'least privilege,' where the driver has a few features and does as few things as possible. For example, the driver does not communicate with the internet or collect any information. All functions that can be done outside of the driver context are done by non-driver components. This reduces the attack surface of the driver, making it less likely that security vulnerabilities exist."

Valorant was first known as Project A and was one of six games to be announced as part of the 10th-anniversary stream for League of Legends. The tactical shooter entered closed beta earlier this month. It also broke the Twitch viewership record.

Valorant is scheduled to be fully released this summer.