How to Get Windows Games Working on a Mac

There are all kinds of reasons to prefer Macs over Windows-based PCs. Gaming isn’t one of them. That isn’t to say that you can’t game on a Mac—modern Apple Silicon computers are fairly powerful. The problem is that many popular games don’t offer downloads that will run natively on a Mac. Search the Mac App Store or Steam and you’ll find a bunch of games for Mac—just not necessarily the specific ones you want.

And there’s another problem: Apple tends to break reverse compatibility faster than Microsoft does. For example, it’s currently impossible to run 32-bit applications on modern versions of macOS. If you have a Steam library full of games that ran just fine on the Mac you had in 2015, you’ll find that a lot of them won’t run at all on the Mac you bought last year.

It’s frustrating. Before you give up and buy a gaming laptop, though, know that you’ve got options for getting PC games to run on the Mac. It’s possible to get many Windows games—even recent releases—working on Apple hardware. It’s just going to take some tinkering and, in some cases, spending a little bit of money.

There’s No Universal Best Option

I would love to simply tell you there’s a definitive best way to play Windows games on a Mac. The truth is more complicated, and likely depends on which specific game you want to play.

The best place to get started is to head to the Apple Gaming Wiki and look up the specific game you’re interested in. Every game has a compatibility chart, letting you know which tools people have had success using to get the game running on a Mac. There are also general tips listed there for getting things running well. In most cases you’re going to want to use the tool with the best documented results here.

There are generally three tools listed in results: CrossOver, WINE, and Parallels. We’ll go over all of these options below.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, for some games, there may be a dedicated port made by a third party. For example: Fans built a port of Sonic Mania for the Mac that can run the game if you buy the Windows version and copy the relevant files. Fans of Final Fantasy XIV also made a client. Such dedicated ports will generally be noted on AppleGamingWiki, so keep your eyes peeled for them. First let’s talk about the best tools for the job.

CrossOver: The Best for Most People

CrossOver Mac is a $74 program that can run Windows applications. You can search for any game, and a lot of software, right in the user interface and get a guided installation process. This means anything your game needs in order to run properly is downloaded and configured for you. CrossOver is expensive, yes, but this guided approach could save you a lot of time compared to the free options. It’s also nice having the ratings for how well the games work right in the application itself, instead of having to research anything yourself.

CrossOver offers a free trial for 14 days. This is a great way to find out if the game you want to run will actually work before committing to paying.

WINE: Functional, but Harder to Set Up

One of the applications I mentioned before, WINE, is another option here. This gets a little confusing because there’s overlap between WINE and CrossOver. WINE is an open source project, meaning it’s completely free to both use and modify. CrossOver is a commercial company that contributes a lot of code to the WINE project and also uses WINE. There are proprietary portions of CrossOver’s code that can, in some cases, make it easier to set up games or boost the games’ performance.

Having said that, though, WINE is totally free to download and install. You could in theory set up WINE directly on your Mac and use that to run games. In practice, however, this is really hard to do. The good news is that there are a couple of free tools that use WINE to make it easy to run Windows games.

The first is Whisky, which offers a minimal user interface but has a strong reputation online for game performance. This isn’t an application that holds your hand like CrossOver, granted, but play with it a while and it becomes intuitive. Whisky’s website has a list of pros and cons comparing Whisky with CrossOver, and I think it’s pretty accurate. There’s also documentation for compatible games. Check this list before attempting to install any games—it often includes steps that are necessary in order to get a game to work.

A potential downside to Whisky: The developer recently announced that he’s stepping back from the project and won’t be updating the version of WINE it uses. This isn’t a big deal in the short term, especially if the game you want to play is working, but it might be a problem as time goes on. There’s no direct replacement right now.

Another option is PortingKit. This tool has a built-in collection of installers for games, similar to CrossOver, though it’s different in a few key ways. I found the guided installers to be a little less reliable than those offered in CrossOver, which is to be expected in a free product made by one person without resources for testing. The performance also isn’t on par with CrossOver or Whisky, but it works in a pinch. There’s a regularly updated blog talking about games that are compatible.

Parallels: The Wildcard

The third option is Parallels, an application that creates a virtual Windows machine on your Mac desktop. To use this you will need to purchase Parallels, install Windows inside that, then install your games in Windows. Parallels is the most expensive option—Parallels costs $100 a year and Windows itself costs $140. There’s also a performance hit, since you’re emulating an entire operating system within your main operating system.

All of this makes Parallels hard to recommend, granted, but it’s an option. And the process of installing and actually running games is a lot simpler, mostly because you’re in Windows itself and can just install software the way Windows users are used to.

The Best Tool Is the One That Works

Again: I wish there was a universal answer to the question of running Windows games on a Mac. Unfortunately there isn’t. Having said that, there is a lot of information. I recommend checking AppleGamingWiki, seeing which tools people have had the most success with, and starting there.