Mac OS typically isn’t known for its gaming prowess but Apple has worked magic on its Silicon M1 laptops to seriously improve the quality of gaming on a Macbook.
Apple’s new lineup includes the Macbook Air (M1), 13″ Macbook Pro (M1) and the Mac Mini (M1). All of these products are enhanced by Apple’s M1 chip which is the first instance of the company using an in-house chip design rather than one from Intel.
Not only does the M1 boost processing power but it is more energy-efficient and boasts four high-performance cores along with four high-efficiency cores.
The new M1 Macs won’t be able to compete with a high-end gaming rig, but the M1 chip is certainly a step up for gaming on a Macbook.
The best games for M1 laptops
In the initial announcement for its M1 chip, Apple showed off Shadow of the Tomb Raider running in Rosetta 2 at 1080p, clocking about 30fps. This is pretty impressive for a AAA game on a Mac OS system.
Given that M1 Macs can handle games like this one it begs the question: what else can you play?
A group of M1 owners have steadily been testing out the quality of a range of games on their new Apple laptops. The results of their testing can be seen in this handy spreadsheet or a full list over on Apple Silicon. There you’ll also find what settings players used to test these games and if they experienced any issues.
Thanks to the M1 chip there’s a surprising amount of games that these new Macbooks can run functionally. Here’s a list of great games you can play on an M1 laptop:
- Among Us
- Apex Legends
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Battlefield 3
- Batman Arkham City
- Bioshock 1 & 2 Remastered
- Borderlands
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III
- Clash of Clans
- Civilization IV, V and VI
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Dark Souls Remastered
- Destiny 2
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Diablo 2 and 3
- Devil May Cry 5
- Fallout 4
- Farming Simulator (2019)
- Firewatch
- Fortnite
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Hades
- Hollow Knight
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Life is Strange
- Mass Effect
- Metro Exodus
- Ori and the Blind Forest
- Phasmophobia
- Planet Coaster
- Rocket League
- Second Life
- Serious Sam 3
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Spelunky 1 & 2
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2
- Starcraft II
- Stardew Valley
- Subnautica
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- The Pathless
- The Sims 3 & The Sims 4
- Total Warhammer II
- Untitled Goose Game
- The Witcher 3
- World of Warcraft
In terms of platform, you can find these games either on Steam, Nvidia GeForce Now, GOG or the Apple App store on Mac. Although take note that some of these games are only playable on one specific platform.
The list also compiles certain games that won’t run on M1 Macs. The likes of Genshin Impact, Doom Eternal, Sim City and Valorant have been flagged as being unplayable on these systems.
Keep in mind that this list is only made up of games that users have physically tested so far. If you have an Apple M1 laptop, consider testing out some games and adding them to the list. The community will thank you for it.
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