HighballHighball › Games that already run natively on Mac, no Highball needed
Games that already run natively on Mac
About one in five of the "can I play X on my Mac" questions in a year of r/macgaming posts are about a game that already ships a Mac build. The answer in those threads is not Highball. It is: open the store page, buy the Mac version, play it tonight.
A native build beats translation every time. Nothing sits between the game and Metal, so you get the frame rate the developer shipped, working controllers, and updates that do not break on the next macOS release. Highball exists for the games that never got one. Checking first costs thirty seconds and saves an evening.
Checked against Steam store pages, Mac App Store listings and publisher pages on 2026-08-29. Compatibility rots. If a row here is wrong, say so and it gets fixed.
Native, current, Apple Silicon
Each of these names an Apple chip in its own published Mac requirements.
| Game | Where | What the store says |
|---|---|---|
| Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition | Steam, Mac App Store, GOG, Epic | macOS 15.5, M1, 16 GB RAM. Mac version shipped 17 July 2025. |
| Baldur's Gate 3 | Steam | macOS 14.7.1, Apple M1. |
| Stray | Steam | "Requires an Apple processor", macOS 13. |
| Civilization VII | Steam | "Requires an Apple processor", M1, macOS Sequoia. |
| Total War: WARHAMMER III | Steam, Feral | Apple M1 or better, macOS 13.4. |
| Hades II | Steam | "Requires an Apple processor", M1, macOS 12. |
| Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition | Steam | "Requires an Apple processor", M1, macOS 15.7. |
| Football Manager 26 | Steam | Apple M1 listed. Unity rebuild, released 4 November 2025. |
| No Man's Sky | Steam | Native Apple Silicon port, on Mac since 2023. |
| World of Warcraft | Battle.net | Apple Silicon native since patch 9.0.2, November 2020. |
| Minecraft: Java Edition | minecraft.net | Apple Silicon native since 1.19. Bedrock has no Mac build. |
| League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics | Riot | Official macOS client. Riot's embedded Vanguard came to macOS in 2025. |
| Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight: Silksong | Steam | Silksong had a Mac build on day one, 4 September 2025. |
| Slay the Spire 2 | Steam | Mac at early access launch, 5 March 2026. |
| Factorio | Steam | Recommended spec is literally "2020 Apple Silicon". |
Feral Interactive keeps most of the Total War back catalogue on macOS, plus Alien: Isolation and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We only checked WARHAMMER III's chip requirement, so treat the rest as "Mac build exists, architecture unconfirmed".
Native, but not on the store you bought it from
These have real Apple Silicon builds. Your Steam copy will not launch one, because the Mac build only exists on the Mac App Store and it is a separate purchase.
| Game | Mac build | Steam |
|---|---|---|
| Resident Evil Village | Mac App Store, macOS 12, M1 or later | Windows only |
| Resident Evil 4 (2023) | Mac App Store, macOS 13, M1 or later | Windows only |
| Death Stranding Director's Cut | Mac App Store, macOS 13.3, M1 or later | Windows only |
Buying a game twice is annoying. It still beats running the Windows build through a translation layer, and it is why the platform icons on the page you are buying from matter more than a general answer.
Native, but an Intel build under Rosetta
A Mac build that predates Apple Silicon still runs, translated by Rosetta 2, and that is a shorter path than Wine plus a Direct3D layer. It is on a clock: Apple has said macOS 27 is the last release with full Rosetta 2, after which a reduced subset stays behind for older unmaintained games.
- Dota 2 supported Valve still ships and supports the Mac client. It is an x86_64 binary.
- StarCraft II Battle.net Mac client, Intel build.
- Civilization VI The Mac App Store version went universal in September 2024. The Steam build still lists Intel requirements, and we did not confirm its architecture.
- Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire (the first one), Terraria, Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition, Hades (the first one) Mac builds from the Intel era.
- Disco Elysium Reported Apple Silicon native on the Mac App Store build and Intel on Steam. Community-reported, unverified by us.
Not native, whatever you have read
| Game | Status |
|---|---|
| Fortnite | No Mac client since 2020, frozen by the Apple and Epic dispute. Cloud streaming only. |
| Valorant | No Mac client, and kernel Vanguard rules out every compatibility layer. Why. |
| Counter-Strike 2 | Valve dropped macOS. Support for the legacy CS:GO Mac build ended 1 January 2024. |
| Team Fortress 2, Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2, CS: Source, Day of Defeat: Source | Valve removed the Mac builds in a June 2024 patch. |
| Among Us | No Mac desktop build. The iPad version is on the Mac App Store and needs an M1 or later. |
| Diablo IV, Overwatch 2 | No Blizzard Mac client. |
| Red Dead Redemption 2, Black Myth: Wukong | Windows only. |
The Valve row is where a compatibility layer genuinely helps: those Windows builds still run. Portal 2 is one of the five titles in our database verified by hand on Apple Silicon, at 200+ fps under DXVK once HDR is off. Grand Theft Auto V is the other common ask, and the answer there is split rather than native: story mode works, Online is blocked.
How to check a game yourself
- On a Steam store page, a macOS icon means a Mac build exists. Open System Requirements, Mac tab: "Requires an Apple processor" or an M-series chip means Apple Silicon native, an Intel Core listing means Rosetta.
- On the Mac App Store, the Compatibility section spells it out: "Mac with Apple M1 chip or later".
- The publisher's own page is the tiebreaker when Steam and the App Store disagree.
Corrections
This list is community-correctable and we would rather be told than be wrong. Open a report with the game and where you saw it. How the data works.
Which should you use
If your game appears in the first two tables, install the native build and skip Highball for that title. There is no argument here: a Mac build is faster, quieter on battery, and will not break when the next macOS ships.
Do not pick Highball if you are on an Intel Mac or macOS 13 or earlier, because it needs Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or newer. Do not pick it for a game walled off by kernel anti-cheat, because nothing in user space fixes that. Do not pick it when the answer is a Mac App Store purchase you were going to enjoy more anyway.
Highball is for the middle case: a Windows-only game, no Mac build, no kernel anti-cheat. Free, GPL-3, no account, no telemetry, with a per-bottle choice of DXVK, DXMT or D3DMetal.