🎮 The Hidden Cost of Gaming Abroad (and How to Dodge It)

You have packed the passport, the power adapter, and your trusty controller. You are ready to travel. The plan is simple: a little sightseeing, a little downtime, maybe a few online matches to keep the streak alive.

In the United States, gaming is more than a pastime — it is a cultural powerhouse. Americans spend over $46 billion a year on video games, and events like National Video Games Day in September (Sep 12th) show just how celebrated gaming has become. With millions of PS5 and Xbox consoles in U.S. households, it is no surprise that many travellers want to keep their favorite games going even while abroad.

But here is the catch. Hotel and Airbnb Wi-Fi can be patchy, slow, or even blocked for gaming. When that happens, the natural backup is to flick on your phone’s hotspot. It works great… until you realize that every online game is burning through roaming data. That is when the “just one match” turns into a bill big enough to ruin your vacation glow.

Let’s talk about how much data popular PS5 titles actually use, what that means if you tether through your phone abroad, and how you can keep gaming without blowing up your travel budget. Spoiler: an unlimited travel eSIM is your new cheat code.

Here are the top PS5 games in the U.S. right now and how much data they typically use per hour when played online (not cloud streaming, which is a very different story).

• Madden NFL 26 – 60 to 100 MB per hour
• Ready or Not – 180 to 260 MB per hour
• Mafia: The Old Country – mostly offline, but online modes 80 to 150 MB per hour
• Gears of War: Reloaded – 170 to 240 MB per hour
• College Football 26 – 60 to 100 MB per hour
• GTA V / GTA Online – 60 to 150 MB per hour, higher on busy servers
• Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater – largely offline
• Minecraft – 40 to 100 MB per hour
• Forza Horizon 5 – 120 to 200 MB per hour
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – 160 to 300 MB per hour

Most games fall around 100 to 150 MB per hour. At home, that is tiny. Abroad on roaming data, it can drain your plan much faster than you expect.

Here is what roaming with U.S. carriers looks like if you game abroad.

• Verizon and AT&T Day Passes – $12 per day. If you play one match of Madden, that match just costs $12. If you play for three hours, the cost averages closer to $4 per hour.
  
• T-Mobile International Pass – for example $35 for 5 GB over 10 days. That works out to about 20 hours of Call of Duty or 60 hours of Madden before you burn through the allowance.
  
• Pay as you go roaming – avoid it completely. At $2 per MB, a single hour of GTA Online could cost hundreds of dollars.

And then there is cloud or remote play. PS Remote Play or Xbox Cloud Gaming at 1080p uses 3 to 7 GB per hour. That is 20 to 30 times more than local play. Unless you are happy to pay for it, do not use cloud gaming on roaming data.

Here is where families often get caught. Kids find the hotel Wi-Fi is bad, so they switch on a phone hotspot. Suddenly, every Minecraft session is billed as roaming data. Even “light” games can trigger $12 per day fees. And cloud gaming can burn through gigabytes in an hour.

To stay safe, turn off automatic console updates (which can be 50 to 100 GB), disable roaming on kids’ lines, or set them up with a travel eSIM that has unlimited data and hotspot support.

Our Head of Commercial here at Sim Local, Laura Bullock explains:

"We see so many travellers shocked by roaming bills after a holiday, especially families with kids who game online. An unlimited travel eSIM takes that stress away. For less than the price of dinner out, you can cover your data needs for the whole week - gaming included and never worry about surprise charges."

Let’s put all that math into something you can picture.

Say you or your child plays Minecraft online for a total of 7 hours during a family trip to Europe. Minecraft usually uses around 40 to 100 MB per hour, so across the week that is 280 to 700 MB of mobile data.

Now, here is what that could cost depending on how you stay connected while travelling:

• Verizon or AT&T Day Pass - you pay $12 for every day you game, even if you only play for an hour. If those 7 hours are spread over 4 different days, you will be charged $48 total.
  
• T-Mobile 5 GB / 10-day Pass ($35) - Minecraft would only use a small slice of the 5 GB. Your 7 hours would cost $35 total (with loads of data left for maps, messaging, or Netflix).
  
• Pay as you go roaming (e.g. $2/MB) - 280 MB to 700 MB would cost between $560 and $1,400. Yes, just for Minecraft.
  
• Unlimited Travel eSIM with hotspot - for around $30 you can get unlimited data for 7 days in Europe (from providers like Sim Local). With hotspot included, you can game as much as you like without paying a cent more.

So, the same 7 hours of blocks and creepers can cost anywhere from “already paid for” to more than a transatlantic flight depending on how you connect.

1. Play locally on the console. Save cloud and remote streaming for Wi-Fi.
2. Download patches and updates before you leave home. Some updates can use huge amounts of data - we’re talking GBs!
3. Use an unlimited travel eSIM with hotspot. That way you can tether your console without worrying about overages or daily pass fees.
4. Turn off auto-updates and background downloads.
5. Use voice chat sparingly. It adds steady extra data use.
6. Set data alerts. Most devices let you track usage in real time.

Always test hotel or Airbnb Wi-Fi first. If it is bad, make sure your console does not default to roaming for large downloads. So turn off any data switching settings on your device.

✈️ Gaming on vacation should cost you sleep, not your savings. Plan ahead, download updates before you travel, and let an unlimited eSIM keep your gaming habit affordable while you explore the world.