Historically, the Mac platform has lagged behind Windows when it comes to gaming, including release dates and overall availability. However, macOS is catching up, thanks to Apple’s new porting tools and a notable pivot into the video game market. Robust Mac gaming is no longer an eccentric wish, but a viable and promising reality.
If you’re a Mac person, you can now enjoy the hottest video game releases of the year, oftentimes at launch or shortly thereafter. For example, the acclaimed Lies of P launched on Mac right alongside its console and PC counterparts, giving gamers a brutal and fascinating spin on Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio. Likewise, No Man’s Sky received a port that brought the sweeping intergalactic adventure to macOS courtesy of Apple’s new silicon chips and Metal API. There are countless excellent Mac ports worth downloading, and even more on the horizon, such as Kuro Games’s excellent free-to-play action-RPG Wuthering Waves (arriving early 2025).
Ready to explore the best Mac games? Check out our top picks that run natively on Mac. Note that most of the highlighted releases are available via Steam, but some, like GRID Legends and Resident Evil Village, can only be found in the Mac App Store.
Recommended by Our Editors
Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exemplary RPG that embraces the genre’s tabletop roots. In it, your party is tainted with a mind flayer’s parasite, so you must fight the corruption or let the aberrant evil take over your minds. You do this by exploring Dungeons & Dragons‘ Forgotten Realms; battling creatures in flexible, turn-based combat; or exercising diplomacy in tense situations. Baldur’s Gate 3 embraces choice, so there is no wrong way to play.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Review
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
Hideo Kojima’s trippy action game makes its way to macOS and includes the enhanced visuals and additional content from the PS5’s Director’s Cut. Don’t let the combination of environmental traversal, third-person shooting, and quirky storytelling throw you for a loop. This unique marriage results in a thrilling package-delivery simulator that’s well worth your time.
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut (for PlayStation 5) Review
In Mankind Divided’s future time, humanity has embraced machine augmentation, creating a dystopian world of cybernetically enhanced people—and a wary population that hates them. Adam Jensen, a special operative armed to the teeth with cyber-weaponry, must unravel a worldwide conspiracy that endangers the global populace. As an action-RPG, Mankind Divided lets you customize Jensen to play as aggressively or evasively as you like. Careful exploration unearths alternate routes within a level, giving you tremendous replay value.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Review
If the idea of building and managing factories sounds like a bore, think again. Factorio blends real-time strategy, survival, and resource management to create an engrossing and addictive game loop. Scavenge materials to create tools and machines, which you can then use to acquire advanced materials to construct new projects.
Grip the wheel and burn rubber in this motorsport game that delivers thrilling arcade-style racing and a robust single-player story. Even better, GRID’s Nemesis system creates hyperaggressive AI drivers that deliberately sabotage you based on how you interacted with them in previous races. If you need a change of pace, you can customize tracks to define routes, rules, and obstacles.
Lies of P is a Souls-like action-RPG that pits you against monsters in brutally unforgiving combat. You play as Pinocchio, a puppet who awakens amidst a tumultuous automaton revolt within the city of Krat. Madness has taken the survivors, and killer machines lurk around every corner. Master the parry system to riposte foes, and save what little humanity is left in Krat—as you make sense of your own.
Marianne is a spiritual medium who finds herself in an abandoned communist resort in the Polish wilderness, seeking answers about her powers and haunting dreams. As a medium, Marianne projects herself into the spiritual realm for dual-reality exploration rife with puzzles and threats. Create psychic shields and blasts to ward off malevolent spirits, and swap between worlds to make headway in the sprawling, haunted resort.
The Medium Review
No Man’s Sky is no longer the buggy, underwhelming space adventure it was at release. Developer Hello Games improved every game facet so it now has enhanced graphics and an overwhelming amount of content, including crafting, space battles, and trading. No Man’s Sky has cross-save functionality between the Windows and Mac versions, too.
No Man’s Sky Review
Return to Raccoon City and relive the zombie-riddled horror in this spectacular remake. The original Resident Evil 2, released back in 1998, has enjoyed numerous ports and rereleases to date. That said, the 2019 remake is easily the best iteration of Resident Evil 2, and is one of the best games in the series. It delivers a satisfying middle ground between RE1’s methodical combat and RE4’s full-blown action, making it a must-play for horror fans.
Resident Evil 2 (for PC) Review
Capcom modernized its earlier Resident Evil entries to critical acclaim. Resident Evil 4, however, was a landmark game for the franchise thanks to its genre-redefining third-person action. The idea or remaking a masterpiece raised many an eyebrow. Thankfully, Capcom updated the visuals, modernized controls, and streamlined the experience without sacrificing anything that made the original so outstanding. The Resident Evil 4 remake doesn’t redefine shooters as it did back in 2005, but it delivers an action-packed adventure that is just as fun to play as the original.
Resident Evil 4 (Remake) Review
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Resident Evil 7 reinvigorated Capcom’s survival-horror franchise back in 2017 by dialing back the action in exchange for white-knuckle suspense. By slowing down the action and committing to a first-person perspective, Capcom injected some much-needed freshness into the series, while also capturing the dread and thrills that made Resident Evil so iconic in the first place. Amazing atmosphere, thoughtful combat, and excellent pacing add up to a fantastic horror game fans Mac gamers should absolutely play.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (for PlayStation 4) Review
Ethan Winters faces unspeakable horrors as he searches for his kidnapped daughter in a derelict European village. This first-person action game takes you through the countryside’s beast-infested dirt roads and into the depths of a vampire-haunted castle. Puzzle out where you need to go, and gun down any shambling abomination that gets in your way.
Resident Evil Village Review
Search for the Lost City of Kitezh as the legendary Lara Croft in this third-person action game. A brotherhood of military zealots also seek the city and fight Lara tooth and nail to reach it first. Craft and upgrade your gear, master movement and stealth to ambush enemies, and solve brain-teasing puzzles as you search for the lost city.
Rise of the Tomb Raider Review
Play as an adorable stray cat in a post-apocalyptic world where mankind is on the verge of extinction and only machine wardens remain. You’re separated from your fellow felines and must explore an ancient underground cityscape maintained by the robots. Explore, solve puzzles, evade capture, and unravel the mystery behind humanity’s demise, while searching for a way back to the surface.
Stray Review
Think Viking Minecraft, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from Valheim. The game offers rich resource-gathering and crafting depth, as well as unforgiving combat inspired by Norse myth. Yet, it is also brilliantly balanced and well-paced. You aren’t bogged down by excessive resource management or frustrating crafting limits, and the challenge always feels fair. These unique twists make Valheim an enthralling game to enjoy solo or with friends.
Valheim (for PC) Review