Cheating in VALORANT Spiked During Riot’s Holiday Break

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Cheating in VALORANT Spiked During Riot’s Holiday Break

In the the weeks before and after the start of 2025, when Riot Games employees are taking their annual holiday rest, recorded instances of cheating in VALORANT doubled across all regions. While the rise in cheating is now under control, the spike shows that it is a never-ending battle between developer and cheater.

But how did cheating in VALORANT get so bad during the holiday break? The head of VALORANT’s anti-cheat explained in a

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yesterday.

Cheating in VALORANT Reached Historic Levels in Brazil

According to head of VALORANT anti-cheat Phillip “mirageofpenguins” Koskinas, Riot’s holiday break opened the door for cheaters to take advantage. During this time, with less resources and people available to detect cheaters and roll out fixes, “the cheaters that weren’t immediately detected started multiplying.”

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Image via @deteccphilippe on X.

From the days before Christmas through the first week of January, the percentage of matches with a cheater detected rose in all regions, but none as dramatically as Brazil. In Brazil, which already had the highest percentage of cheaters of any region, the percentage of matches with a cheater spiked from just under 5% to around 12%. According to Riot, Brazil cheaters regularly use a “pixelbot” that reads the screen, identifies enemy outlines and heads, and then submits mouse events to the OS that points the cheater towards that enemy.

The pixelbot cheats popular amongst Brazil cheaters are supposedly cheap and easy to install, but Riot says they’re also easy to spot. Once the Riot holiday break ended and normal anti-cheat detection resumed, the cheater percentage in Brazil (and other regions) dropped dramatically to a lower level than it was before the break. Riot says the the January 10-13 weekend featured its “highest sustained ban velocity on record, with almost seven suspensions occurring every minute.”

In yesterday’s post, Riot admitted that the fight against cheaters will never end. Because VALORANT is free and there’s little to no barrier to entry, no cheater can be truly permanently exiled. While Riot team remains committed to disrupting cheaters, they also plan to implement ranked rollback in the next act, which restore rank rating to players that lost against caught cheaters.

Did you notice a spike in cheaters when you played VALORANT during the holiday? Let us know in the comments below or on our community forum!

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For more esports news, check out our coverage of an esports org CEO embezzling thousands from his organization.

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