How to Play Xbox Games Early

Have a massive new MMO that you’re excited for? Or maybe a sprawling single-player RPG that you just know is going to suck up 70 to 500 hours of your life, or even more? If you’re reading this article, we’ve all been there. And, we’ve all wanted to play on day one.

Of course, day one sometimes comes sooner for some countries than others, and ain’t that a pain? All that waiting, and some faraway friend or foe might just post spoilers on social media before you can play. Well, have no fear, because with a little time, and PIA VPN, you too can dive in exactly when those lucky people halfway around the world do.

How to Change Your Region on Xbox

The Official Way

Let’s start with the official process. If you’re moving to another country, this is what you need to change the region on your usual Xbox Account: a few minutes.

In a browser: 

1. Go to your Microsoft account profile.
2. Select “Payment and Billing.”
3. Update your address in the Address Book.

You’ll also want a payment method for the country you’re moving to as soon as possible, to buy games. However, you don’t need it just to complete the official region-change process.

When you are doing this via the browser, you’ll want to choose the state, as well as a postal code and/or time zone.

On your Xbox One or Series S/X: 

1. Hit the Xbox button on your controller.
2. Select Profile & system > Settings > System > Language & location
3. There will be a dropdown list labeled “Location”. Choose your new country there.

For people who still have Xbox 360s: you will need a payment method local to the country in question. The account migration process for the 360 is different and more annoying. This is true whether you migrate your account from a browser or your console.

According to Microsoft, this is the proper way to change regions. Of course, it only really works as intended if you’re moving to another country. Sure, you could use a VPN to pretend you’re in that country, but you can only change your account region every three months. This makes it highly impractical to change your account just to play a game that’s available early in another country.

So here’s how to do that.

The “Play Games Early” Way

This process is slightly more involved, and needs a little planning… though not as much planning as it takes to move to another country. Here’s what you need:

• An Xbox VPN like PIA.
• A new Microsoft account with the location set to the country of your choice. You don’t actually need more location info than this.
  • You don’t need an Outlook email address for this, you can use any email address not already attached to a Microsoft account.
• A payment method for the country in question.
  • Credit cards work, but you’ll need a local address for that.
  • PayPal likewise needs the account to be registered in the country in question.
  • Gift cards can be purchased for any region online, and don’t require a billing address.

Once you have completed all of that, here’s the process:

• Set up your router to use PIA VPN’s servers, and connect to the country of choice.
  • Not all routers support VPNs. In a pinch, you can use another PC or a smartphone to set up a hotspot, and connect your Xbox to the internet through it while running the PIA app.
• Power up your Xbox, and create a new Xbox/Microsoft account.
  • This can also be done in a browser, as long as it’s also connected to the right VPN server via the app or your router.
• Apply the payment method of your choice.
  • Again, gift cards for the country in question are recommended here. Just load up your new account with prepaid credit.
• See what games are available in the store in your newly accessible region, buy, download, and play.

Of course, this comes with one mild downside – if the game isn’t free, it will be attached to the new account alone. Your usual profile, achievements, etc. will not be available. For free-to-play games, you won’t need a payment method, but again all progress will be tied to the new profile.

And, to play your usual games, it’d be best to connect back to a VPN server in your own country and log back into your usual account.

Can You Change Your Xbox Timezone to Play Games Early?

No. This sort of trick hasn’t worked for a long, long time. The Xbox platform doesn’t rely on your local system time or time zone alone to decide whether you get to buy a game. It compares your time zone to your IP address, which tells it where you are geographically located.

Those two things have to match to buy and play games locked to a particular country. And that’s where a VPN comes in.

If You Pre-Order an Xbox Game, Can You Play It Early?

That depends entirely on the game in question. Some of the current bigger AAA titles will offer a few days of early access for those who pre-order the game on any platform. It has little to do with Xbox, and everything to do with the game’s publisher.

It should also be noted that pre-order early access is far from guaranteed. Multiple large releases have suffered from major technical issues that ate up hours and even days of early access time. People paid extra and ended up playing when the rest of us did.

Why PIA Is the Best VPN for Gaming

Speed, security, and a wide-reaching network are what you want in a gaming VPN, and PIA has all three. For this use case in particular, PIA’s global network of blazing-fast 10Gbps NextGen servers should interest you, because it means that wherever a game is released early, PIA probably has a server there to help you make a local Xbox account.

After that, it’s also good to consider the military-grade encryption, the no-logs policy, the suite of extra security features, 24/7 live customer support and… oh yeah, the console support. Not every VPN actively supports gaming consoles, but PIA does.

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