A Valorant player on Reddit claims they received a hardware ban after installing a secondhand CPU purchased on September 21, with the original owner's ban dating back to August 12. Riot Games anticheat head Phillip Koskinas disputes the story, stating hardware bans last a maximum of four months and cannot "infect" other components in a new system.
A German Valorant player found themselves hardware banned after purchasing a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D whose previous owner had cheated in the game. Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat system flagged the CPU's serial number, and the ban extended to every component in the player's rig. The incident raises serious questions about buying used PC hardware for competitive gaming.
Forza Horizon 6, set to release on May 19, has suffered a significant leak, with players accessing the game early via unencrypted files on SteamDB. Developer Playground Games has vowed to take strict action, including franchise-wide and hardware bans, against those found playing the leaked build. The move has drawn a mixed response from the community, with some questioning the punishment given the leak's apparent origin from a review build mishap.
