It’s practically tradition at this point for Xbox gamers awaiting the next big release to change their region to New Zealand to get in those precious early hours of game time. Even Todd Howard reportedly endorsed the method prior to the release of Starfield. So, how do you change your region?
How to change your Xbox region to New Zealand
- On the home screen of your Xbox Series X|S, open “Settings” from the top bar.
- Navigate down to “System”
- Open “Language & location”
- Open the “Location” drop down menu and select New Zealand for the earliest time.
- After choosing the country, press “Restart Now” for the change to save.
It’s as easy as that! You’ll likely notice some differences now that your Xbox region has changed. The most important one is that the game you want to play early will now be available. Once the game is out in your region, just follow the instructions above again to change your Xbox back to the correct country.
Do note that this trick doesn’t work for all games. A lot of games have rolling releases where the game launches at the stroke of midnight in each region. For those games, the New Zealand change will work just fine.
However, other games have simultaneous releases where the game launches at the same time in every country. For example, a New York timed midnight simultaneous release might mean that California gamers can play a few hours early on the day before, while European or Asian players won’t get the game until later in the day their time.
You can usually find out if the game you want to play is a simultaneous or rolling release a few days before launch.
