Best Games for Mac: A-list Mac games to play

Macworld

It’s no longer true that the best games aren’t available to play on the Mac. Recently we’ve seen many many A-list games arrive on the Mac, including Assassins Creed: Shadows, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Civilisation V11, and Resident Evil. 

You can see reviews of our favorite A-list games that are now on the Mac below. In this article, we’ve collected the best Mac games for your delectation.

Below you will find what we believe are the greatest Mac games out there, together with links to the Mac App Store, Steam and other reputable vendors, so you can buy them right away. These are the very best games for Mac.

You may also like to take a look at our Best Mac for gaming guide. Plus we have an in-depth look at using an M-series MacBook Pro as a gaming laptop. And if you want some free games to try out on your Mac take a look at our round-up of the Best free Mac games.

Best Mac Games 2025

Before we run through our list of all the best games we’ve played on the Mac, here are games that we strongly recommend you play on the Mac in 2025.






1. Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (Mac) – Creepy, unsettling and full of jump-scares
























Apple Silicon, with Resident Evil: Village at the end of 2023, quickly followed by Resident Evil 4 in 2024. The latest addition to the range is Resident Evil 7 Biohazard.

Biohazard requires a Mac with an M1 or later, running macOS 13.0 or later. Biohazard also runs on the iPad, as long as it has an M1 processor and iPadOS 17, and even the iPhone, with iOS 17 and an A17 processor.

It is cheaper than other games in the series, costing just $19.99/£15.99 on the Mac App Store. The game can be downloaded for free and run in demo mode, called ‘The Beginning Hour’, as an introduction to the main game. If you like the demo, you can buy the full game as an in-app purchase, and there’s an expansion pack available for another $19.99/£15.99.

The game introduces Ethan Winters (who also appeared in Village), who searches for his wife, Mia, who vanished mysteriously three years ago. He receives an email from Mia asking for his help and gives him an address in a swampy backwater town in Louisiana. The game switches to an isolated first-person view, making every shadowy corridor seem even more oppressive and creepy. The game also makes clever use of the found-footage genre of horror movies, with Ethan finding old VHS tapes around the house that help fill in some of the background. There’s also a time-travel effect, where you can take actions during video segments in the past that impact on the present.

Capcom recommends a game controller, but it’s possible to play with a keyboard and mouse if you prefer.

Read our full

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (Mac) review






2. Assassin’s Creed Shadows – Action-packed with stunning visuals
























Shadows is the first game in the long-running Assassin’s Creed series that has been released on the Mac. It’s set in Japan during a civil war in 1579 as the warlord Oda Nobunaga attempts to conquer and forcibly unite the country’s warring factions.

You to play as two separate characters, each with their own different skills and fighting styles. Naoe is a shinobi (ninja) who specialises in stealth and agility. Yasuke, a samurai who can block and parry his foes’ attacks. It’s pretty violent but you can tone down the settings for blood and dismemberment if you want. This one isn’t for kids.

The game does take a little while to get going, as it effectively has two introductions to allow you to get some practice with the different fighting styles of Naoe and Yasuke. Things soon pick up, though.

Shadows provides plenty of quests and combat to keep you busy. For the most part, it’s all about the wall-to-wall combat, with lots of sneaking and parkour-style running and jumping to add variety. There are four difficulty settings available – which will be helpful for Mac users who haven’t played any of the Assassin’s Creed games before.

What most impressed me were the game’s 3D graphics. The early cut-scenes were very impressive, with some of the most detailed and photo-realistic effects that I’ve ever seen on a Mac. With many games, though, and when the cut-scenes finish you find that the actual in-game action tends to offer a lower level of visual detail, but, with Shadows, the game just continues smoothly at the end of these cut-scenes and maintains the excellent visual quality throughout the game.

Read our full

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows review






3. Death Stranding Directors Cut (Mac) – Apocalyptic, cinematic
























Death Stranding, the idiosyncratic and sometimes downright bizarre game from Hideo Kojima, the renowned developer behind the long-running Metal Gear series, arrived on the Mac in 2024.

The game is set in a near-future version of the United States, in the aftermath of a mysterious apocalyptic event known as the Death Stranding, which has caused the collapse of society. All that’s left are a few scattered communities, which rely on ‘porters’ to deliver supplies and help set up a communications system called the Chiral network. That’s where you come in, playing Sam ‘Porter’ Bridges – who is voiced by, and modeled on the actor Norman Reedus of Walking Dead fame – as he trudges across the country delivering his supplies. Along the way, you’ll encounter terrorists and creepy invisible monsters called BTs (‘beached things’), but your real foe for much of the game is simply the environment around you.

There is some combat in Death Stranding, but your main task as a porter is to struggle across the rocky, ruinous countryside as you embark on a series of missions to deliver your cargo of medicines and other supplies. The game is sometimes described as a ‘walking simulator ’ as you spend much of your time clambering over rocks, up hills, or wading across rushing rivers and streams. That may not sound terribly exciting, but there’s a lot of satisfaction as you struggle to slowly inch your way towards the peak of a craggy hill with your cargo intact.

The game also has a dramatic cinematic flair – possibly a little too cinematic, as the first 45 minutes or so is really just a series of very long cut-scenes, interspersed only by a few brief sequences where you learn how to control Sam as he walks, jumps and wades across the rocky terrain. The long cut-scenes can try your patience in the early stages of the game, but they do look terrific – the landscapes have a cinematic scope, and the 3D graphics are tremendously detailed and realistic. And the feeling that this is the gaming equivalent of a blockbuster Hollywood production is further emphasized by cameos from a number of other Hollywood big names, including Mads Mikkelsen, Guillermo Del Toro, and Lindsay Wagner.

The graphics do require a bit of horsepower though. The game will only run on Macs and iPads that have an Apple Silicon processor (M1 or later), and running macOS 13.3 or iPadOS 17.0. We were pleased to find that the game ran well even on an iMac with an M1 processor, although we did have to lower the resolution to 1920×1080. You might need an M2 or M3 to really enjoy the game’s sweeping vistas and eerie special effects, but seeing a game like Death Stranding running on an M1 iMac gives us some hope for the future of games on the Mac.







4. Frost Punk 2 – Blade Runner with added snow
























When it launched a few years ago Frost Punk was a surprise hit. It tis a survival game based in an alternate 19th century world that has been plunged into a new ice age by a vast, global blizzard called the Great Frost. Frost Punk 2 is set 30 years after the original and you are tasked with finding new sources of food and fuel for the growing population and dealing with threats like hunger, crime and factional rivalries. 

The new game has a prologue that introduces the story for new players, and also acts as a tutorial, in which you struggle through the icy ‘frostlands’ to reach a wrecked train and scavenge its resources.

The game also looks great, with dramatic and imposing 3D graphics that look like Blade Runner with added snow.

Frost Punk 2 is quite a challenging game, even for people who have played strategy games before. Basic tasks such as gathering resources can prove to be quite complex. Frost Punk 2 is a little more abstract than its predecessor, as you now need to step back and take more of an overview of the structure of this society. There are several difficulty levels, where you can adjust economic conditions, such as the scarcity of food and fuel. You can also modify the weather. 

The scale of New London and its complex society provides a rich tapestry for the story that unfolds under your stewardship. Once you’ve finished the main game there’s also an ‘endless’ Utopia mode that allows you to start a new city by choosing from a variety of locations, with different terrain and weather conditions.

Frost Punk 2 is available on both Steam and the Mac App Store, but the Steam version of the game is slightly cheaper.

Read our full

Frost Punk 2 review






5. Resident Evil 4 – Jump scares galore
























It can be a little tricky following the sequence of the Resident Evil games – especially as most of them have never been released on the Mac. Last year’s Resident Evil: Village was the eighth game in the long-running series, although it was the first ever to arrive on the Mac, and also one of the first games written specifically to run on Macs with Apple Silicon. However, Resident Evil 4 is actually a newer game (sort of) as it’s a remake of the original Resident Evil 4, which was first released back in 2005.

Being a newer game means that it’s considerably more expensive, though, weighing in at a rather hefty $59.99/£57.99. However, it works hard to earn its keep with “juiced-up visuals and a reimagined story” as well as improved controls for combat and other character actions. And, thankfully, you can actually download the game for free and play through the opening section, before deciding if you want to go ahead and buy the full version of the game as an in-app purchase (along with some rather pricey DLC packs too).

This installment follows the adventures of special agent Leon S. Kennedy – a floppy-haired special agent from an earlier game in the series – who has now been recruited to rescue the kidnapped daughter of the US President. Tracking her down to a village in Spain, Leon encounters a spooky cult called Los Iluminados, who have turned the villagers into crazed killers. You have to fight your way past the villagers and confront various bosses as you track down the President’s daughter and attempt to uncover the cult’s true plans.

Resident Evil 4 has some good jump scares along the way, but it’s more action-oriented than Village and doesn’t have quite the same creepy and tense atmospherics. It certainly keeps you busy, though, as you shoot and slice your way through the villagers, and encounter the mysterious figures who control the cult. And, of course, it’s pretty gorey too, with a 17+ age rating.

Like Resident Evil: Village, this game runs on Macs with Apple Silicon, and it ran pretty well even on a 24-inch iMac with a basic M1 processor. It felt a little sluggish initially, but seemed to run quite smoothly once we turned the resolution down to 1,920 x 1,080, and experimented with some of the graphics settings (the game will also run on iPads with Apple Silicon, and even on the iPhone 15 Pro as well).







6. Prince Of Persia The Lost Crown – The Prince on the Mac
























The Lost Crown was released for Windows PCs at the start of 2024, but it took until December for it to appear on the Mac App Store where it’s working its way up Apple’s games chart.

The Lost Crown is a side-scrolling game that combines combat and platform-jumping elements. It’s presented like an old-school 2D platform game where you mostly run left or right across the screen and use the Space bar to jump over obstacles. The game looks great with detailed backgrounds that create a real sense of atmosphere

You play a young warrior called Sargon, who is a member of a group that modestly call themselves The Immortals. The kingdom of Persia is under attack from an enemy army, and Prince Ghassan has been taken captive and imprisoned on the magical Mount Qaf. Sargon and his associates head off to rescue the Prince, but soon discover that Mount Qaf is full of mystical enemies, puzzles and obstacles that have to be overcome.

The game requires an M1 processor or later (so it won’t run on Intel Macs). However, the 2D presentation means that it doesn’t need a powerful Mac, and we had no trouble running it with high graphics settings at 4K resolution on a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip.

Read our full

Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown (macOS) review






7. Resident Evil 3:
























Capcom is putting in a lot of effort to release Mac versions of its games, especially the Resident Evil series, and as of spring 2025 it’s added a Mac version of Resident Evil 3, a remake of the original game from 1999.

You play as Jill Valentine, a special agent sent to Racoon City to investigate the outbreak of the ‘zombie virus’ that first appeared in Resident Evil 2. Jill and her fellow agents suspect Umbrella, a pharmaceutical corporation that developed the T-Virus, the biological weapon behind the outbreak. In most Resident Evil games, you fight zombies, but Resident Evil 3 introduces Nemesis, an intelligent super-zombie that is hunting you down. 

As the hunted instead of the hunter, instead of blasting zombies, you’re on the defensive, constantly pursued by Nemesis as you escape Racoon City. This offers a welcome respite from the usual offensive gameplay in the franchise.

The game doesn’t require a high-end Mac to handle its 3D graphics, but it only runs on Macs with Apple Silicon, not Intel. So that’s an M1 processor or later and macOS 13.0 or later. We tested it on a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip and it ran smoothly, even with hordes of zombies. You can download a demo to see how it runs on your Mac before buying the full version. 

The Mac version also runs on iPhone 15 or later and iPads with an A17 or M-series processor, so you can play it on your mobile devices too.

The Mac version of Resident Evil 3 is currently only available on the Mac App Store. 

Read our full

Resident Evil 3 (Mac) review






8. Civilization VII – Rewrite history
























There are changes to the latest game in the long-running Civilization series that are a good way of making the game more accessible for newcomers, though veteran Civ players may feel the new approach is dumbing the game down somewhat.

As usual, you choose a leader and a civilization that you control and develop throughout the ages and your aim is either conquering rival civilizations, or emerging as a world leader through economic, scientific or cultural dominance. But, in Civilization 7, your leader and your society are entirely separate, so you can mix-and-match leaders and countries in historically inaccurate ways. We had Catherine The Great Of Russia leading the armies of ancient Rome rather than 18th century Russia.

Once you’ve chosen your leader and their civilization you start in any of three different Ages – Antiquity, Exploration, or the Modern Age. You follow four different ‘paths’ that lead to success – economic, cultural, scientific, or military. Focus on one path or diversify and explore the benefits of each. Your leader remains the same as you progress through all three ages, but you get to choose a new civilization each time.

Dividing the game into ages like this does make it more approachable, as it splits the game into manageable sections. However, some players may miss the military and political intrigue of previous games.

One criticism that has emerged loud and clear across the board is that the game’s user interface is poorly designed, with unhelpful menus and tool-tips that make it difficult to find the information you need. We found it annoying that the game was constantly badgering us to create an online account in order to use the online multiplayer mode and unlock other bonuses. The developers have announced that they’re working on fine-tuning the interface in response.

Civilization 7 runs natively on Apple Silicon – but not on Intel Macs. It lists Sequoia as the minimum required version of macOS, although we ran it in Sonoma without issue. Performance is good, despite the game’s detailed 3D graphics. The game has a built-in benchmarking tool, and my MacBook’s M2 Pro chip was able to cruise along at a comfortable 55fps using High graphics settings when set at 2,560×1,440 resolution.

Read our full

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII review






9. The Witcher and Witcher 2 – Back on the Mac
























I’m chomping at the bit to get my hands on the forthcoming Mac version of Cyberpunk 2077, which is due “early in 2025″’” according to the developers at CD Projekt Red. But, without making very much fuss about it, the Polish developer has also been updating some of its older games for the Mac as well, including the classic Witcher and Witcher 2.

The first two games in The Witcher series were released for Intel-based Macs back in 2008 and 2011 respectively, but they were among many games that were left behind with the introduction of macOS Catalina in 2019 (seriously, Catalina had the same effect on Mac games as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs back in the pre-historic days). More recently, though, both games have received updates that provide up-to-date support for Apple Silicon – although they do require macOS 11 or later for both Apple Silicon and Intel processors.

Both games are classics of the RPG genre, casting you in the role of Geralt Of Rivia, a ‘Witcher’ – or monster hunter – who uses a variety of weapons, magical spells and potions to tackle his supernatural foes. The first game hurled Geralt into a war between rival factions seeking power in Temeria, while the second game saw him framed for the murder of the King of Temeria. It might sound like standard fantasy role-playing stuff, but the great strength of the games is their rich and exciting story-telling – based, of course, on the novels of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski – which brings the world of Temeria vividly to life, and presents Geralt with complex moral decisions that genuinely affect the outcome of the games.

Sadly, The Witcher 3 was never released for the Mac, but The Witcher and Witcher 2 should provide enough role-playing goodness to keep you busy until Cyberpunk 2077 comes along. And, as they’re both quite old games, they’re relatively cheap these days too, with the updated The Witcher: Enhanced Edition costing £6.99/$9.99 on Steam and Gog, while The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition is $19.99/£14.99. Both games are available on the Mac App Store too but, as is so often the case, the Mac App Store is over-priced, charging $19.99/£19.99 for each game.







10. Total War: Pharaoh – New for Mac users
























After a fairly epic detour into the fantasy worlds of Warhammer, the Total War series is back on its home turf once more, returning to the more traditional historical settings that the games have explored in the past. This time it’s ancient Egypt for Total War: Pharaoh, set in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, and covering the lands of Egypt itself, as well as neighboring Canaan and the Hittite Empire.

There are eight factions spread across these three lands, all competing to take the throne of Egypt and become the next Pharoah (with additional factions available to purchase as DLC on Steam). Each faction has its own leader, with their own individual strengths and abilities, such as the reckless young warrior Ramesses (who has a tendency to “put the chariot before the horses”), and the cunning Tausret, who uses diplomacy and finance to pull the levers of power. If you’re new to the game then there are several tutorials available that introduce the basics of battle, as well as more advanced tactics, such as siege warfare, and learning how to use the land and weather to your advantage.

Pharoah might not have the otherworldly spectacle of the Warhammer games, but it still looks great, with spectacular vistas as the rival armies charge across the desert dunes. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t run on older Macs that have Intel processors, but it ran quite smoothly on an iMac with a basic M1 processor when set to 1920×1080 resolution (and using the new gaming mode in macOS Sonoma).

The main single-player campaign should keep you busy for quite a while, and as well as creating custom battles to hone your skills you can also customize the main campaign, adjusting the troops, resources and money that are available to make the game more challenging. It’s a shame, though, that the game’s multiplayer mode only allows you to play with other Mac users, as this means that – without being able to play against PC users – you’ll have a fairly limited choice of online opponents.







11. Hades 2 – If you die you start again
























Hades II (Early Access) was released for Windows PCs in 2024 but at the end of 2024 an update added native support for Macs with Apple Silicon.

You play Zagreus’ (from the first game) sister, Melinoë, a sorceress with powerful magical abilities who attempts to find and defeat Chronos, the ancient god who was father of Hades and is now waging war on Olympus itself.

Like Hades, Hades 2 is a ‘roguelike’ game. Roguelike games don’t allow you save the game and reload when you die, so each death means that you have to start again. That can be frustrating, but you can find new weapons and learn new skills as you progress, as well as earning ‘boons’ from the gods that make you more powerful. You also get to keep your skills and upgrades even after you die, so each time you start again you’re a little bit more powerful. There’s a God Mode that gives you a power boost right from the start.

Hades 2 is in Early Access – and looks likely to remain that way for most of 2025 – but it’s pretty solid and stable. The hand-drawn graphics style looks great and the relatively simple 2D shaded graphics mean that you don’t need a particularly powerful Mac to run it (I was able to get 60fps using High graphics settings, even at 4K resolution using a MacBook Pro with M2 processor).

Roguelike games don’t suit everyone, but Hades 2 is a lot of fun and a worthy successor to the original Hades, and it’ll be nice treat for anyone that enjoys challenging arcade action.

Read our full

Hades 2 review






12. Dredge - Something strange lurks beneath the surface
























Dredge was first released for Windows PCs back in 2023, but the developers at Black Salt Games have launched a Mac version, along with mobile versions for iOS and Android. At first glance, Dredge looks like a quiet, cosy game where you spend your daylight hours calmly fishing the seas around the island of Greater Marrow, occasionally delivering items to people on neighbouring islands, and trying to drum up enough cash to upgrade your fishing boat and equipment. The game’s simple shaded graphics remind me of Monument Valley, and its soothing soundtrack – complete with the sound of lapping waves – almost makes you drift off to sleep.

But you soon detect hints of something strange lurking beneath the surface. You start to find mysterious messages floating in bottles out at sea, and the local Mayor repeatedly warns you to get back to the dock before it gets dark at night. A few days of fishing and delivering parcels helps ease you into the game, and then you’re approached by a mysterious figure called the Collector, who asks you to find a number of items that were lost in shipwrecks around the islands.

This can be a challenge as you need quick reflexes to control the tension in your fishing gear and bring these items to the surface (and a game controller might be a better option here than using a keyboard). It takes time too, and I soon found myself hurrying back to Greater Marrow in the dark one night, only to be attacked by a great undersea creature that wrecked my boat and returned me to my last saved game.

Things just get creepier from there as you start to uncover the mystery behind all these lost ships, and the full game will keep you busy for 10-12 hours, depending on how much time you spend fishing, treasure-hunting and completing side quests. Admittedly, the excitement in Dredge is doled out sparingly, so it’s not a game for action fans, but the balance between the calm daylight hours and the menace that lurks in the dark creates an oddly soothing rhythm that will appeal to fans of more peaceful gaming pursuits (one review on Steam called it “Animal Crossing meets Lovecraft”).

Figuring out where to buy the game can be a little tricky, though. It’s already available on most of the main game stores, including Steam, Epic and Gog with the standard version of the game costing $24.99/£21.99 (with additional DLC bundles also available).

It’s not due for release on the Mac App Store until the end of February 2025, but the developers say that buying the Mac version will also give you access to the mobile version for the iPhone and iPad as well. The Mac App Store also provides a trial version that lets you play the first section of the game before buying. The developers do recommend a Mac with Apple Silicon, but the game ran on my aging Intel-based iMac with no trouble at all.







13. Baldur’s Gate 3 – Vast adventure with slick 3D graphics
























The original Baldur’s Gate games were classics of the RPG genre when the series was launched almost 25 years ago, but their 2D graphics haven’t aged well, despite an HD update in 2012. However, the forthcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 brings the series well and truly up to date with slick 3D graphics and a vast adventure that looks set to match the epic scale of its predecessors.

It’s actually been available in ‘early access’ on Steam since 2020, but the game finally has a firm release date for August 2023 so you can now dive in and test drive the early chapters of the game to prepare yourself for the arrival of the full game in just a few months time. It’s not a true sequel as the story and the main characters are all new – set more than 100 years after BG2 – although it is still set in the famous Baldur’s Gate region from the popular Dungeons & Dragons table-top games (and – spoiler alert – some familiar faces do make a welcome reappearance).

Rather than the powerful, god-like being that you became in Baldur’s Gate II, the new game lets you start from scratch with an entirely new character, chosen from the traditional D&D selection of races and classes – humans, elves, dwarves, wizards, warriors and rogues – and you then awake to find yourself prisoner on a flying ship controlled by Mindflayers (a familiar villain from D&D lore). The ship is attacked by dragons, but you’re able to escape – only to find that a Mindflayer larva has been implanted inside your brain. So, along with other survivors from the crashed ship, you set out to try to find a cure and then quickly find yourself embroiled in a mysterious war between the Mindflayers and an assortment of enemy races – who won’t be fully revealed until the game’s launch in the summer.

The 3D graphics really bring the game to life as you and your companions wade into combat, but the spectacular visuals do need a fairly fast Mac in order to run properly. The developers says that the game will run on an Intel Mac with a quad-core CPU and an AMD graphics card, or on most Macs with M1 or M2 processors. However, we had to drop the resolution to just 1600×900 on our M1 iMac in order to get a playable 25fps, so an M1 Pro or higher might be better. Fortunately, the game’s turn-based combat doesn’t require lightning reflexes and high-speed action, so you can still get by with an M1 Mac if you need to.

The decision to opt for turn-based combat might worry old-timers – like yours truly – who remember the terrific real-time-with-pause system of the original games. But turn-based is the trend these days, and if my time in the early access game is anything to go by then you’ll find that the old Baldur’s Gate magic will soon tempt you in as you “gather your party before venturing forth” – just like the good old days!







14. Valheim – Challenging game with retro 3D graphics
























There aren’t many survival games that have made it onto the Mac, so we were pleasantly surprised when developer Iron Gate announced a Mac version of its hugely successful Valheim. The PC game has been available in early access since 2021 – which means that you’re essentially paying to play a beta version of the game – but it’s received a series of updates over the last couple of years that add more and more features, and the game has now sold more than 10 million copies.

Valheim follows the standard format for the survival. genre. Rather than providing a central story or quest, it simply drops you into the world of Valheim, which is based on Norse mythology, and then just leaves you to get on with things and decide how you want to play. The world includes several different biomes–regions with different terrain and climate–including leafy forests, snowy mountains or the barren Ashlands that were added in a recent update. You’ll start in a fairly welcoming leafy glade, where you can gather food and materials for crafting and building yourself a home.

Many people seem quite happy to spend a lot of their time working on their homestead, hunting and crafting to make themselves comfortable in their new home (a bit like the Sims, except with Vikings and monsters). But, as you develop your crafting and building skills, you’ll need to wander a bit further afield and explore other biomes in order to find new materials and resources.

As you visit each biome you’ll encounter a variety of beasts and monsters, which will force you to craft more powerful weapons and hone your Viking fighting ski