Ping and picking a country
With a VPN in between, your ping has two parts. One runs from you to the VPN server, the other from there to the server hosting the match, and it’s the second one that should decide the country. For European servers, Germany, the Netherlands or Finland are fine. Routing traffic to an American server by way of Europe won’t speed anything up.
The Fastest tile won’t help here. It picks a country near you and doesn’t take the match server’s location into account. A badge like 10 GBIT next to a country in the list describes the server’s bandwidth, not your ping.
When you really do need one
Roblox was blocked by Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, in December 2025, and Supercell withdrew Brawl Stars and its other titles from the country back in 2022. From Russia you can’t get into either game without a VPN, and there’s a page for each, VPN for Brawl Stars and VPN for Roblox.
Discord stopped working in Russia in the fall of 2024, so talking to your team mid-match takes the same VPN. Voice channels through a VPN have quirks of their own, covered on VPN for Discord.
On a computer
On the desktop, VanyaVPN has a version for Windows, one for Mac and one for Linux. It routes the whole computer at once, launcher, game and Discord included, with no per-program setup to do.
A computer can’t keep one game outside the VPN, since picking apps is something only Android can do. If a game runs fine in Russia without a VPN and ping is what you care about most, just switch VanyaVPN off while you play.
What players ask
Is there an app for PlayStation or Xbox?
No. VanyaVPN runs on computers, phones and Android TV. A console can only get the VPN from your router. VanyaVPN gives routers PPTP and OpenVPN settings, and the router page has the steps.
Can a VPN change my Steam region?
No. Steam only switches your store country when you buy something with a card or another payment method from the new country, and no more than once every three months. Its Subscriber Agreement also rules out using a proxy or similar tricks to hide where you live, and Valve can close your access to the account over it. Turkey and Argentina, the regions people used to chase, have priced games in US dollars since November 2023.
Can I get banned for playing through a VPN?
It depends on the game. Some games and stores don’t allow you to change your account’s country, so read their rules before you move regions.
Will a VPN fix lag?
Not if the lag comes from weak Wi-Fi or an overloaded computer. It stands a chance only when your provider routes traffic to the game server badly and the path through another country turns out smoother.
More games and services are under Use cases.