Summary: the Best VPNs For GamingUsing a VPN while gaming can ensure a lag-free and secure experience. Moreover, it can help you unblock region-restricted games. The fastest gaming VPNs are:
- ExpressVPN – Best overall gaming VPN
- Surfshark – High speeds for a low price
- CyberGhost – Most user-friendly VPN for gaming
Read the full article below for more details about each. Also, learn how to choose the best VPN for your needs and set it up on your gaming device.
Using a VPN helps protect your personal data online, and it can also be a vital tool when gaming. A VPN encrypts your internet connection and hides your IP address to grant you access to region-restricted games and possibly protect you from DDoS attacks and other threats. It can also help lower ping and lag so that you can enjoy a smoother gaming experience. However, it’s important to choose the best and fastest gaming VPN that offers enough bang for your buck. We tested several providers, and here are our top choices.
The Best Gaming VPNs
If you want to stay safe and anonymous while playing your favorite online game without lag, here are the three best VPNs for gaming:
- ExpressVPN: Most reliable and fastest VPN for gaming.
- Surfshark: High-speed and affordable gaming VPN
- CyberGhost: The most user-friendly VPN for gaming with fast speeds.
Let’s check out each one in more detail.
ExpressVPN: the most reliable gaming VPN
ExpressVPN is one of the best VPN providers out there, and there currently is a sharp deal on the 15 months package. Their connections are fast and stable, and they have thousands of servers in almost a hundred countries all over the world. With enough servers to choose from, you can easily find the fastest one and stay protected while playing games online.
What’s more, ExpressVPN can help if you want to unblock a specific game that isn’t available in your country. Simply choose a server in a country that offers access to the game.
Granted, ExpressVPN is pricier than many other gaming VPNs, but in return, you get the most reliable protection and high speeds that ensure you can keep gaming without lag. You can always try it out first, thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee. Want to know more about this provider? Then dive into our detailed review of ExpressVPN.
- Very easy to use VPN
- Perfect for anonymous browsing, downloading, and streaming (i.e. Netflix)
- 3000+ servers in 94 countries
Surfshark: high speeds for a low price
In our recent tests, Surfshark turned out to be one of the fastest VPNs for gaming. It’s a relatively new provider that’s quickly joined the top of most of our lists. Their service is very user-friendly and works on many different devices.
Moreover, Surfshark offers great speeds and low ping whether you connect to a server nearby or on the other side of the world. So, you won’t experience any lag or wait time for games to load.
The biggest advantage is the affordability. A Surfshark subscription will cost you just a couple of dollars a month, which makes it one of the cheapest VPNs for gaming without compromising on protection or speed.
Just like ExpressVPN, Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try the service out before committing to a subscription. If you’d like to read more about this newcomer, you can read our full Surfshark review right here. Click the button below if you want to go straight to Surfshark’s website.
- Very user-friendly and works with Netflix and torrents
- 30-day money-back guarantee. No questions asked!
- Cheap with many extra options
CyberGhost: unlimited gaming with user-friendly software
The third best VPN for gaming is CyberGhost. This provider also scored very well in our speed tests. No matter where you are in the world, one of CyberGhost’s thousands of fast servers will help you stay safe online while gaming.
Although CyberGhost’s speeds aren’t as fast as Surfshark’s or as reliable as ExpressVPN’s, the difference is negligible and will not hamper your gaming experience. You can use it to play all kinds of games from all over the world without any troublesome lag. Moreover, it’s quite affordable and easy to use too.
If you’d like to learn more about this VPN, you can read our detailed CyberGhost review. If you’d rather get started right away, head to their official website by clicking the button below.
- Very user-friendly
- High quality for a low price
- Torrents and Netflix possible
How to Choose a VPN For Gaming
Now that you know our top three best gaming VPNs let’s consider how exactly you should choose a provider. After all, it’s crucial that the VPN doesn’t impair your gaming experience. So here are some things to consider:
High speed and stability
Most gamers will value speed and a stable connection in a VPN. A good connection is essential for online multiplayer games. You might have heard gamers complain or brag about their ping. This has to do with their internet speed.
Ping refers to the latency between the player’s client and the gaming server. The numbers refer to the time in milliseconds it takes for information to travel between the servers. The lower the ping, the better your online game will run.
A higher ping could cause lag, which is very annoying when you’re in the midst of playing a competitive online game. Some games will even disconnect a player if their ping is too high to function properly within the game. For this reason, our three best VPNs for gaming were mainly selected on their high speeds and stable ping.
To make sure that your internet connection doesn’t suffer too much when you use a server located outside of your own country, try to connect to a server in a country geographically closer to you. The further a server, the slower your connection will be.
Online security
Not all VPNs are equally safe. A good VPN will encrypt your online data and send it through a protected tunnel. This means your activities won’t be visible to others, including hackers, your ISP, and the government. In addition, your IP address will be hidden, meaning your location is safe and won’t be revealed online.
However, some VPNs don’t provide you with this kind of protection or may abuse the information you trust them with. For instance, what if they sold your data to other companies? Or what if they use the information they gathered about you for marketing purposes? This is what happens with many free VPN options. For this reason, we recommend always using a premium VPN service.
Whether you’re gaming or just browsing, you need a VPN that you can trust with your data. That’s why our list of best gaming VPNs only includes providers that have proven they provide robust online security and will keep your data safe and anonymous.
Unblocking abilities
Some game developers only launch new games in one country or specific parts of the world. This is often the case when they want to test the public response, have limited resources, or are still looking for bugs. Other times, some games might be geographically restricted due to censorship by local authorities. In such cases, a VPN can help you unblock access and play games that you might otherwise not be able to.
Most good VPN providers have servers in a large number of countries. By connecting to a server outside your own country, you’ll bypass any restrictions that your geographical location imposes. You could access the internet as though you were in that country. This means the geographical restrictions of your own country don’t apply to you anymore.
However, not all VPNs can unblock the same (amount of) content. For example, a VPN with a large server network is likely able to unblock more content than one with just a couple of VPN servers. Aside from that, websites can choose to block access for IP addresses that belong to VPN providers. Moreover, sometimes using a VPN might be against the terms and conditions of games you want to play, so it’s good to check if this is the case.
Nonetheless, the top 3 VPNs we’ve shared above are pretty comprehensive and can unblock almost all content so that you can play whatever games you like.
Test period
Most VPN providers have a test period or money-back guarantee that allows you to test their services before committing to a subscription. We would advise you to use this trial period, especially when looking for the best gaming VPN for your needs. You can try out the VPN this way and even perform some VPN tests to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. If you notice that the VPN you’ve chosen isn’t performing as well as you want, don’t hesitate to cancel your subscription and try another one.
We at VPNOverview test VPN providers from our office in the Netherlands. If you are somewhere else in the world, providers might perform very differently. Use the test period to see how the service performs in combination with your favorite game. This way, you have the best chance of finding a VPN that works for you. All of the VPN providers recommended in this article offer you plenty of time to try out their service before really committing to a subscription.
Do You Really Need a VPN For Gaming?
A VPN can enhance your gaming experience because it allows you to game more freely and more securely. As mentioned earlier, not all games are available worldwide. But a VPN can help you access games that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to play in your country.
Furthermore, a VPN can make a big difference when it comes to safety too. Whether you’re simply browsing or playing an intense multiplayer shooter on the internet, you’re always at risk of being attacked. A VPN offers protection against all sorts of online dangers by encrypting all of your data and anonymizing your online activities.
In intense and competitive online games, an opposing team might attempt to sabotage you with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. This means they’ll send a lot of “fake” traffic to your server in an attempt to flood it and prevent you from playing.
Other such attacks often used in online gaming involve locking users out of their accounts or wiping databases. A possible real-life threat is swatting, meaning your house gets visited by police while you’re streaming and gaming, by ways of a prank. A VPN can go a long way to fend off these nasty tactics.
In short, if you want to get access to countless games from all over the world and keep yourself safe from online attacks, a VPN is the way to go.
How to Set Up a VPN on Your Gaming Device
It’s easy to install a VPN on your gaming device. Whether you use a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or some other device, a VPN will be able to protect you in just a couple of minutes. The easiest way to install a VPN on your computer is to download the program from the VPN service’s official website.
Follow these steps to install a VPN on your laptop or desktop computer:
- Go to the official website of your chosen VPN provider and create an account.
- Download the VPN software from the official website.
- Install the VPN software by following the steps described in the installation wizard.
- Log in to the VPN software with the account you’ve created in step 1.
- Choose the VPN server you wish to use. If you don’t want to unblock a particular game, choose the server that’s closest to you. This will give you the least lag while gaming.
- Turn on the VPN and start gaming as you usually would. You’re now protected by the VPN.
If you’re used to gaming on a device that isn’t a laptop or desktop, you can find out how to install those on the following pages:
- Set up a gaming VPN on your Android smartphone.
- Set up a gaming VPN on your iPad or iPhone.
- Install a gaming VPN on your router (for any other Internet-bound devices).
Game On!
If you’re looking for reliable and trustworthy VPN services for online gaming, we recommend ExpressVPN, Surfshark, and CyberGhost. These VPNs offer fast connections, stable servers, plenty of possibilities for unblocking content, and protection against online attacks. They can help you play your favorite games without lag and while staying safe. If you have any further concerns or questions, let us know in the comments below. We’d love to help you out.
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about VPNs and gaming. Just click a question to see the answer.
The best VPN for gaming is ExpressVPN. This provider is the most reliable and offers high speeds that will barely affect your gaming experience. You won’t experience any lag, while also being able to unlock games from other countries. ExpressVPN has a big server network that will help you get the most out of your subscription.
There are multiple reasons for using a VPN while gaming. The two most important ones are more online security and access to blocked games:
- A VPN will protect you against DDoS attacks and other online dangers you might encounter while you’re gaming.
- Some games can’t be played everywhere in the world, either because of censorship or because it’s still in beta. A VPN will allow you to access these games, no matter where you are in the world.
Yes, in most countries including the United States and other western nations, VPN usage is legal. However, some countries such as China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and more, ban VPNs and you may be penalized if caught using one. So, be careful about the local regulations wherever you are. Moreover, some games too might block you if they detect that you’re using a VPN as it might be against their terms and conditions.
This is tricky and the answer could vary greatly depending on which VPN you use, which server you connect to, and where you’re located. Usually, a VPN is likely to slightly increase the ping in your connection. However, if you connect to a high-speed server that’s very close to your location, you could see lower ping that will ensure smoother gameplay without lag.
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