Anyone Router Hardware preorders are live now! Acquire your hardware now
Buy Hardware
Acquire tokens through Uniswap. You will be redirected to Uniswap
Acquire Tokens
Join our thriving community of Atornouts
Using a VPN for gaming used to sound like a bad idea — gamers worried about lag, high ping, and disconnects. However, online gaming today faces problems that a VPN can solve: IP-based DDoS attacks, region-locked content, ISP throttling of game traffic, and even harassment or swatting enabled by your exposed IP. Recently, there have been cases of streamers and players being DDoS’d or even doxxed/swatted because attackers obtained their IP address. A VPN shields your real IP, making these attacks much harder. The issue has been that many so-called “gaming VPNs” were either ineffective or untrustworthy. They might advertise “gaming-optimized” servers but secretly be logging connections or using congested networks that turn a 30 ms ping into 200 ms. And some VPN services have suffered privacy failures (like IP leaks or server breaches) that undermine the whole point of using them. It’s no wonder gamers have been skeptical.
Anyone approaches gaming + VPN differently. Instead of sending your traffic through a single, centralized VPN server, your packets travel through multiple relays in a decentralized network, each operated by independent participants. This onion-style multi-hop routing keeps your real IP hidden from opponents, game servers, and even your ISP.
No single relay ever sees both who you are and where you’re going – so no one entity can log everything or target you. This is critical in competitive or toxic gaming environments: if someone tries to DDoS you or reveal your location, they’ll only hit an intermediary relay IP, not your home.
Meanwhile, your ISP can’t tell if you’re gaming or browsing, which helps prevent them from throttling your game traffic (a tactic some ISPs use during peak times or to certain services). In fact, one way to detect ISP throttling is to use a VPN and see if speeds improve – with Anyone on, your ISP likely won’t distinguish your game data from any other encrypted traffic, meaning more consistent performance.
It’s true that any VPN adds a bit of overhead – extra distance and encryption can increase ping slightly. But the key is smart routing. The Anyone network is designed to choose efficient paths for traffic. Often, gamers find that the trade-off is minimal compared to the benefits.
In some cases, using Anyone can even improve stability: for example, if your ISP has poor peering with the game server region, the decentralized route might avoid those congested points, resulting in smoother gameplay. While a bad VPN might route you halfway across the world unnecessarily, Anyone lets you tailor or automatically optimize the path.
Many “gaming VPNs” just bounce you through one fixed server (which could be overloaded with other users); Anyone’s dynamic routing avoids bottlenecks by design. Moreover, because Anyone is community-powered, there are relays all around the globe, not just a few data centers. You can often get a relay path that exits near the game server you’re targeting, minimizing additional latency.
Gaming is increasingly global, but content releases and servers are often region-restricted. With a VPN, you can appear in a different country to access new game releases early or play on servers with a different player base.
Anyone makes this easy: just select an exit relay in the region you need (where supported) and you can bypass region locks. For example, if a game update or beta is available in another country first, a VPN can let you temporarily “travel” there digitally and join in.
Unlike some VPNs that get blocked by game servers (because their IP ranges are known datacenter IPs), Anyone’s network uses residential and diverse nodes that are much harder to detect or blacklist. It means you’re more likely to successfully connect and play without the service knowing you’re on a VPN. It’s gaming without borders, as it should be.
Because Anyone is free and community-powered, you can use it as a gaming VPN on PC, console, or mobile without worrying about monthly fees or bandwidth caps. Many gamers on tight budgets resort to unsafe “free VPNs” which often come with catches (like ads, data limits, or even malware).
With Anyone, you get free, unlimited VPN protection backed by a transparent network. And you know that the network isn’t owned by a single company that might sell your data – it’s run by a community with a stake in privacy. The About the Network page explains how relays are incentivized and kept honest via decentralization and the Anyone Token. Essentially, your gameplay privacy is protected not by trust in a company, but by the open technology behind Anyone.
1. Decide where you’ll run the VPN: If you game on a PC, you can install the Anyone client directly on that machine (Windows or Mac). For consoles (like Xbox or PlayStation), you have two options – either run Anyone on a VPN router or on a PC that you turn into a gateway, then connect your console through it. Using a VPN on your router will cover any device on your network, including consoles (see our VPN for Routers guide). For mobile gaming, the Anyone mobile app (or manual configuration) can protect your phone/tablet games as well.
2. Install and connect the client: Follow the platform-specific setup in the Docs or Help Center. The installation is lightweight. Once installed, launch the Anyone app and simply click “Connect.” The client will automatically establish a multi-hop encrypted tunnel. You can verify it’s working by checking that your external IP has changed (use your favorite “what is my IP” tool before and after connection to see the difference).
3. Test game servers and latency: Jump into an online match in your usual game and check your ping. In most cases, you’ll notice little to no difference. If you do encounter higher ping, you can experiment with different relay paths or exit regions (if the client allows region selection). For example, if you’re in Australia but playing on a U.S. server, try using an exit relay in the U.S. to appear local to the game server. The Anyone network will still protect you with entry and middle hops while giving you a U.S. exit. Find the sweet spot between privacy and performance that works for your game.
4. Keep the VPN on during sessions: For maximum protection against DDoS and IP leaks, keep Anyone running whenever you’re gaming online – especially in competitive matches or when using voice chat. Voice applications like Discord or in-game chat have been abused to sniff out IP addresses in the past. With Anyone on, all that communication is also routed privately. If you’re streaming your gameplay, it’s wise to use the VPN as well, as streamers are frequent DDoS targets. Anyone’s impact on your connection is small compared to the huge benefit of peace of mind that no angry opponent can knock you offline or find your location.
By using a decentralized VPN, you’re leveling up your security without giving up performance. You can focus on the game, while Anyone quietly handles the privacy in the background.
