Best VPN for Gaming in Australia
A VPN will not lower your ping. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling one. What a gaming VPN can do is hide your IP address from other players, get you onto servers in another region, and keep you safe on shared Wi-Fi. Whether that is worth a few extra milliseconds depends on what you play.
What a VPN does to your ping
A VPN adds a stop between you and the game server, so latency nearly always goes up. How much depends almost entirely on how close the VPN server is to you.
We measured this ourselves from Melbourne in August 2021. On a Sydney NordVPN server, ping went from 15 ms to 46 ms. That is nothing in a turn-based game, noticeable in a fast shooter, and a fair guide to what a nearby server costs you. Connect to Los Angeles to play on American servers and you can expect a couple of hundred milliseconds whichever VPN you use, because that is how far away Los Angeles is.
Those figures are from our NordVPN review, where the full table and the date are shown. In the same round of tests IPVanish held latency very low on its Sydney server, while giving up more download speed.
The practical rule: pick the VPN server in your own city, or the nearest one.
When a gaming VPN is worth having
- Hiding your IP address. In peer-to-peer games and voice chat, other players can sometimes see your IP address. A VPN shows them the VPN’s address instead, which protects you from the sore loser who wants to knock you offline.
- Playing on other regions. Some games matchmake by location. A VPN lets you appear in another country, at the cost of the lag that comes with the distance. Check the game’s terms first, as some publishers do not allow it.
- Shared and public networks. University halls, share houses and hotels often block game traffic or run dodgy Wi-Fi. A VPN gets around the first and protects you on the second.
- A badly routed connection. Occasionally your internet provider sends traffic the long way round, and a VPN finds a shorter path. When we tested Astrill from Melbourne in 2022, speeds on its Sydney server came out slightly faster than with no VPN at all. It is rare, and you cannot plan on it.
VPNs with servers in Australian cities
The closer the server, the lower the lag, so city coverage matters more for gaming than the total server count. This is what each provider lists on its own server page.
| VPN | Lowest monthly price | Renewal price | Money-back | Countries | Devices | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 NordVPN | A$4.79 27 months, A$129.33 upfront | A$187.08 per 1 year | 30 days | 150 | 10 | Visit NordVPN |
2 Surfshark | A$3.49 27 months, A$94.23 upfront | – | 30 days | 100 | Unlimited | Visit Surfshark |
3 ExpressVPN | US$2.99 (about A$4.29) 28 months, US$83.72 upfront | US$99.95 per 1 year | 30 days | 113 | – | Visit ExpressVPN |
4 IPVanish | US$2.39 (about A$3.43) 2 years, US$57.36 upfront | – | 30 days | – | Unlimited | Visit IPVanish |
5 CyberGhost | A$3.27 26 months, A$85.02 upfront | A$85.02 per 1 year | 45 days | 100 | 7 | Visit CyberGhost |
– means the provider does not publish that detail on its pricing page. Prices shown in US$ are published in that currency; the Australian-dollar figure is approximate, converted at the European Central Bank euro reference rates for 12 Oct 2026 (US$1 = A$1.43).
NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN and IPVanish each list Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. CyberGhost lists Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. If you are in Perth or Adelaide, that difference is the one to care about.
Consoles: PlayStation, Xbox and Switch
Consoles do not run VPN apps. You have two options: install the VPN on your router, so everything in the house goes through it, or share a connection from a PC or Mac that is running the VPN. Check that the provider lists router support before you buy; it is shown in the facts table on each of our VPN reviews.
What to look for
- A server in your city. See the table above.
- WireGuard or a protocol built on it. It is the fastest of the common protocols. NordVPN calls its version NordLynx.
- Split tunnelling. This lets the game go through the VPN while downloads and updates go direct, or the other way around.
- A kill switch you can turn off. Handy for privacy, annoying if it drops you from a ranked match when the VPN reconnects.
FAQ
Does a VPN reduce ping?
Almost never. It adds a step to the route, so ping usually rises a little on a nearby server and a lot on a distant one.
Will I get banned for using a VPN in games?
Using a VPN is legal in Australia, but some publishers restrict it in their terms, particularly for buying games at another country’s price. Read the terms for the game you play.
Is a free VPN good enough for gaming?
Rarely. Free plans tend to have few locations and busy servers, which is the opposite of what you want. See best free VPN in Australia for what the free plans include.