Highball › Anti-cheat on Mac: what can and cannot work

Anti-cheat on a Mac

This is the single most common reason a game will not run on your Mac, and it is the one problem no compatibility layer will ever solve. It is worth understanding before you spend an evening and 80 GB finding out.

Why kernel anti-cheat cannot work

Anti-cheat systems like Vanguard, Ricochet and the kernel modes of Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye load a Windows kernel driver. They run underneath the game, inside the operating system itself, precisely so that cheats running as ordinary programs cannot hide from them.

A translation layer such as Wine runs entirely in user space. It converts Windows API calls into macOS ones inside a normal process. There is no Windows kernel underneath it, so there is nothing for a Windows kernel driver to load into. This is not a missing feature or a bug that will be fixed in a later release. It is the architecture.

Anti-cheat vendors can enable support for Linux, and several have, because Proton runs on a Linux kernel that those vendors can target. That route does not extend to macOS, and no vendor has announced plans to make it.

What that rules out

39 games in the database are marked blocked for this reason. The list includes Fortnite, Valorant, Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and the online modes of several games whose single-player campaigns work fine. Highball marks them in your library before you download anything.

Two of those entries come with a caveat worth knowing: League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics carry kernel anti-cheat on Windows, so the Windows build is unrunnable here, but Riot ships an official macOS client. Install that and the problem disappears. Other games with native Mac builds.

What still works

Plenty. Anti-cheat that runs in user space, or that is only active in multiplayer, often behaves. Several games with anti-cheat in their online modes are completely playable single-player, which is why the database records a verdict per title rather than a blanket rule per anti-cheat vendor. Helldivers 2, and Elden Ring's single-player, are examples of games people play on Macs despite carrying anti-cheat. Online modes are a separate question and often the part that gets blocked.

So the honest answer is: check the specific game rather than assuming. The database is here.

If the game you want is blocked

Cloud streaming is the only real answer. The game runs on a real Windows machine in a datacentre, so the anti-cheat is satisfied, and you watch the video. GeForce NOW has a native Mac app and Xbox Cloud Gaming runs in a browser. Both cost money every month and neither lets you mod anything, but for a competitive shooter that is often the trade you want anyway.

If the game has a native Mac build, use it. A native build beats translation every time, and it is worth checking before assuming you need Highball at all.