For the longest time there wasn’t much of an association between Macs and gaming – it was hard to get working and the computers were generally graphically weak.
That changed in a massive way when Apple started making its own silicon, and ever since the M1 chip Macs have been getting some of the biggest games just like the PC. In fact, at WWDC 2023 Apple even announced a new feature – Game Mode, which cuts down on audio and input latency when gaming on Mac.
So, there’s never been a better time to start gaming on your Mac, whether it’s a MacBook Air or a Mac Mini, and we’ve gathered a handy selection of the very best titles that you should be trying right now.
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ZA/UM Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
1. Best Mac game overall
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Capcom Resident Evil Village
2. Best Mac game for horror
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Supergiant Games Hades
3. Best Mac game to replay
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Matt Makes Games Celeste
4. Best Mac game for platforming
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Square Enix
Final Fantasy 14
5. Best Mac game for online play
The best games for Mac right now
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
1. Best Mac game overall
Superb writing
This might just be the best-written game we’ve ever played, and it runs like a dream on recent Mac devices.
Pros
- Unbelievable writing
- Great voice acting
- Amazing style
Disco Elysium is an unreal achievement, one that basically rewrote what we expect from a role-playing game, thanks to its insightful, sharp writing and sense of freedom.
You play a detective whose life has fallen apart, trying to figure out a crime that only gets more complex the more you investigate, but you can approach it truly however you want.
Bracing and brazen, it’s an all-time great and works a treat on Mac hardware.
Resident Evil Village
2. Best Mac game for horror
Excellent scares
Village might be the best modern Resident Evil – a superb campy voyage through horror tropes that retains some real shocks.
Pros
- Really frightening
- Action-packed
- Looks amazing
We love Resident Evil Village – we couldn’t stop playing it at review and have been thinking about it ever since, and it’s definitely one of the most visually complex and graphically intensive games you can test your Mac’s mettle with.
A brilliant horror-action game that veers from moments of intense quiet to huge explosions of violence, the pacing is just amazing and the tone is so joyfully absurd.
It’s the sort of game we never thought we’d see running on Mac, too.
Hades
3. Best Mac game to replay
Stunning roguelike
A superb roguelike that draws you in with clever storytelling.
Pros
- Inventive storytelling
- Amazing action
- Can play endlessly
Cons
- Random runs can go bad
Hades is one of the best games of recent years, a roguelike adventure that sees you trying to escape the titular realm of hell over and over again, with random powers that you pick up each time.
What makes it so brilliant is that its excellent, zippy combat is paired with clever storytelling that uncovers new dialogue and moments each time you die, unfurling a touching and slow story.
It also looks pretty ravishing, with its character designs in particular already having become hugely influential.
Celeste
4. Best Mac game for platforming
Lovely story
Celeste is beautiful and challenging, but also accessible and rewarding – a superb platformer.
Pros
- Touching story
- Incredibly tight platforming
- Careful difficulty curve
Cons
- Post-game content is wildly hard
Another hugely impactful indie game from the last few years, Celeste was immediately praised as a phenomenon when it came out, and offers some of the tightest, most satisfying platforming ever.
It manages to balance this incredibly impressive gameplay with a thoughtful story about anxiety and self-doubt, really sensitively told and gentle.
Best of all, there are so many difficulty options to ensure that anyone can have fun playing what could have been a tough-as-nails game.
Square Enix
Final Fantasy 14
5. Best Mac game for online play
Huge community
A simple gargantuan MMO to devour on Mac.
Pros
- Huge world
- Lovely graphics
- Endless content
Cons
- Takes ages to get started
Every gaming platform worth its salt needs a good MMO to sink into, and Square Enix is thankfully on hand with Final Fantasy 14, a massive world from its most famous franchise.
This huge MMORPG lets you take on whatever identity you like and make your way through a series of sprawling stories together with friends or solo, and offers a simply staggering diversity of content.
It has really impressive graphics, too, so is another great example of a game that only modern Macs can run to the fullest.
Larian Studios
Baldur’s Gate 3
6. Best Mac game for role-playing
Amazing conversations
This phenomenal RPG has loads of twists and turns to uncover.
Pros
- Fun writing
- Looks amazing
- Loads to see
Cons
- Not technically finished
It’s rare that we can feature a game on a list like this when it technically isn’t even out yet, but Baldur’s Gate 3 is in early access (although it’s out on PC). So, if you play now your progress won’t carry over to the final release.
A faithful Dungeons & Dragons game that lets you make your way through a classic and complex plot with your own character and a collection of memorable companions, it features fun combat and amazing dialogue to experience. It’s also extremely pretty and looks gorgeous on the latest displays from Apple on its Macs.
Total War: Warhammer 3
7. Best Mac game for strategy
Hugely detailed
A quite amazing strategy game with some crazy depths to explore.
Pros
- Great faction options
- Huge battles
- Fun troops
Total War: Warhammer 3 is the culmination of Total War’s excellent work on Warhammer, bringing more factions and tactical options than ever to the field, with simply amazing battle options.
It has a huge campaign map with varied locations and impressive detail, along with a range of troops that simply beg you to zoom in for inspection as they fight.
It’s so visually complex and requires a lot of attention to succeed, but offers a hugely deep gaming experience on Mac.
Larian Studios
Divinity: Original Sin 2
8. Best Mac game for co-op
Work together
A wonderful RPG that plays even better with a friend along for the ride.
Pros
- Seamless co-op
- Fun story
- Interesting combat
Divinity: Original Sin 2 offers up something a little unique for role-playing game fans – the ability to easily play its entire story through in co-op. In fact, it’s almost the default way to play Larian’s brilliant game.
With fun dialogue and interesting characters, you’ll explore a big world working out how you want to resolve situations and finish quests. It has interesting and explosive combat, too, with loads of elements to combine.
While it can’t match the shinier graphics of Baldur’s Gate 3, this is still stunning work from Larian.
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider
9. Best Mac game for action
Explore ancient ruins
A stirring finale to a really impressive trilogy of modern Tomb Raider games.
Pros
- Looks superb
- Great level design
- Fun stealth
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the culmination of the modern Tomb Raider trilogy, and confirms it as a brilliant part of Lara Croft’s lengthy history in gaming.
It’s a gorgeous game, too, even a few years on from release, and a great showcase of how Macs can now keep up with the competition in gaming. You’ll explore some simply beautiful locales (and in many cases see them get destroyed, too).
What you need to know
As that list of heavy hitters will have shown, you have plenty to pick from on Mac now, and with Steam having long since been made compatible with Mac hardware there are countless more to explore.
New titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 offer up the shiniest visuals, but there’s always plenty to be said for all-time indie classics like Hades and Celeste.
Sitting pretty atop them all, in our opinion, is Disco Elysium – a stunning RPG that has writing most games would kill for, and a must-play on Mac.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Editor’s Choice
Disco Elysium is the best game on Mac, for our money.
How to choose the best game on Mac for you
While we’ve selected some of the very best games we think you can find on the Mac above, exactly which will be perfect for you could be slightly complicated, so we’ve got some frequently asked questions for you to consider that could help you narrow things down.
Do you have a favourite genre?
If you’re an experienced gamer, there’s every chance you know what you like, whether it’s a platformer like Celeste or a third-person action game like Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
This will also help you rule games out – if you know that you don’t like horror games, for example, because they’re just too scary, then Resident Evil Village won’t be for you.
What Mac are you playing on?
At first, the Apple Silicon offering was a pretty small slice consisting of the M1 chip, but a couple of years on and the range is huge, from the M1 Max to the M2 and its many versions, and these do matter when it comes to gaming.
Every game we’ve selected should run nicely on any Apple Silicon Mac, but the fact is that if you’re running an M2 Pro you’ll get better performance than a standard M1, and that might be worth bearing in mind if you’re drawn to the most graphically intensive games. This will also have a knock-on effect on battery life if you’re gaming on a MacBook.
Do you have a controller to connect?
On that note, if you’re on a MacBook some of the games we’ve selected will be more than a little challenging with just a trackpad to control your character with.
In particular, first or third-person games simply play better with either an external mouse or a controller connected, and the games should recognise this and remap their controls according to what you’d like to use.