A VPN not only enhances your privacy (by protecting you against DDoS attacks and hiding your location) while you go about demolishing opponents in fiery online multiplayer games, but it also allows you to sidestep bandwidth throttling and unblock geo-restricted content, which includes region-specific game releases, discounts, and lobbies.
Experts at Tom's Guide test and compare the best VPNs regularly, evaluating them across various parameters, such as speed, unblocking, privacy, security, ease of use, and value for money. This puts us in a pole position to be able to filter out the top VPN choices for gaming.
In our latest NordVPN review, we found that it was the best gaming VPN based on our testing. Well, our latest round's results are now out, and we're eager to share our findings with the gaming community. Keep reading to find out whether NordVPN is still the best for gamers, and if it is, why.
Is NordVPN still the best gaming VPN?
We test the top dozen VPNs on the market every 6 months or so to make sure our VPN recommendations (across all use cases, not just gaming) are always accurate. So, according to our latest round of testing, NordVPN continues to be the best VPN for gaming out there, followed closely by ExpressVPN as the runner-up and then Surfshark at #3.
In reality, though, NordVPN is just the most superior all-around service we've tested. It's the fastest, the very best for unblocking streaming platforms and other geo-restricted content (and by extension, international game libraries and lobbies), and a delight to use, thanks to powerful apps on all devices, including Xbox and PlayStation.
While class-leading speeds and one of the most comprehensive server lists are strong enough reasons to tout NordVPN as the best for gamers, it further solidifies its top position with an all-in-one security package. In addition to a bulletproof kill switch, battle-tested encryption, and an independently audited no-logging policy, NordVPN also comes with built-in malware protection and ad-blocking, a password manager (NordPass), a data breach scanner, and identity theft insurance, among others.
Next, NordVPN offers a standout feature called Meshnet that will surely please gamers. It allows you to host your own private gaming server (where you can allow up to 60 devices at a time) and play local multiplayer games with your friends, no matter where they are.
Why is NordVPN the best gaming VPN?
NordVPN excels in all the key areas important for gaming. It's wickedly fast, has servers everywhere around the world, and provides a high-quality service that won't leave you in the dust or vulnerable to online threats.
With that said, I'll now dig into the specifics of each of these factors to better explain why NordVPN is the top choice for gamers looking to take their gaming to the next level and benefit from rock-solid security.
1. Speed
Picking a VPN that's fast is crucial for your gaming experience. Blazing-fast connection speeds keep lag and latency to a minimum, ensuring stable performance, irrespective of the time of the day you choose to engage in high-octane online battles.
Our latest rounds of VPN testing revealed that NordVPN is among the fastest VPNs on the market right now. We’re confident in our findings, thanks to how thorough our VPN testing process is. We test each VPN’s speeds multiple times throughout the day: 20 times in the morning and 20 times in the evening, to be precise. We do so on a 1 Gbps wired Ethernet connection in two locations: one in the US and the other in the UK.
NordVPN is one of the very few VPNs to max out our connection line, courtesy of top speeds of over 950 Mbps when using the provider's custom-built WireGuard-based NordLynx VPN protocol. While you'll be using WireGuard most of the time, OpenVPN is still a useful protocol, using which NordVPN managed to reach a decent 173 Mbps. That's admittedly not the fastest out there, but will undoubtedly support almost every single use case.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that the average home connection speed in the US that's deemed "ultrafast" is around 100-200 Mbps. Plus, you really only need 50 Mbps to stream in 4K, which makes NordVPN close to 20 times faster. The good news kept coming as NordVPN churned out jitter of just around 4, upload speeds of 950+ Mbps, and a stable latency of around 20 milliseconds, which makes it quick enough for bandwidth-intensive online gaming.
2. Server spread
A vast server network is crucial for every VPN user, but it's just indispensable for gamers. It allows them to play on different regional servers, get their hands on location-specific game releases and discounts, and maximize their gaming potential by giving them the ability to connect to servers closest to their game's servers, minimizing ping.
NordVPN well and truly delivers on this count, offering a massive catalog of 6,000+ servers across a total of 111 countries. Combined with class-leading speeds, you're pretty much guaranteed a stable connection no matter where you are on the map.
I'd also like to mention that while other VPNs may be present in a few more locations, almost none of them offer the kind of double whammy NordVPN does, i.e., a high number of servers and a large server spread.
3. Reliability
The last thing you'd want when hunting down enemies in a thrilling game of World of Warcraft is for your VPN to suddenly drop out. This would not only kick you out of your gaming session immediately (especially if you've used the VPN to change your location to either unblock a region-specific game or access easier bot lobbies in games like CoD Warzone, or both), but also leave you open to ill-intended opponents who may then target you with DDoS attacks. Additionally, there are threats like ISP throttling, latency, and malicious ads and pop-ups to consider.
Having explained the significance of selecting a reliable VPN, I would also like to reassure you that you won't have to deal with any of the aforementioned scenarios if your gaming VPN of choice is NordVPN. The service didn't drop out at any point of time when we put it through the wringer for our in-depth NordVPN review, plus it comes with a wealth of security features to keep your protected online, meaning your gaming sessions will go uninterrupted, even if you're connected to a server halfway across the world.
