Are Macs good for gaming in 2025? It's complicated

Summary

Modern Macs can keep up with many 3D games, but don’t expect to play all the latest titles with maximum fidelity.
Macs still have a much smaller library of games to choose from — mostly because the console and PC markets are more lucrative for developers.
You shouldn’t buy a Mac explicitly for gaming, but you can have a good time if you set your expectations appropriately.

If you didn’t know, Apple has always had a fraught relationship with gaming. Its

Pippin
console platform — launched in 1996 — was an abject failure, and the company infamously lost Bungie’s

Halo
to Microsoft, which used it as a system-seller for the original Xbox. The company’s executives do talk up gaming efforts at press events, but inevitably let them languish. Consider how many iPhone and iPad games are low-effort clones — or how rarely you hear about Mac versions of the latest blockbuster console and PC titles. Don’t count on

Grand Theft Auto VI
getting a native Mac release, because there still isn’t a Mac port of GTA 5, nearly 12 years after its debut.

That doesn’t mean it’s pointless to be a Mac gamer, however. If the idea of a

MacBook
, iMac, or other model is appealing, you can make it work as a

gaming machine
— you may just need to temper your expectations. Mostly, that involves checking your expectations of performance, available titles, and sometimes even the kinds of games you can play.

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How do Macs rank in gaming performance?

Good, but not great

Kojima Productions

For several years now, all Macs have been based on one of Apple’s internally-designed M-series chips. This is both a great and a terrible thing, as far as gaming is concerned. It’s great insofar as Apple’s chips are tuned for macOS, and vice versa, enabling optimization that most Windows PC builders can only dream of. The

M4 Mac mini
delivers a surprising amount of oomph for its form factor.

It’s terrible, however, for a couple of reasons. The first is that because Macs use a radically different system architecture, console and PC game makers have to use Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit to convert their software, spending time and labor that could otherwise be devoted to future projects. There’s more to say about that in the next section.

There’s no support for CPU swaps, or pairing with a dedicated graphics card, which can give PC gamers dramatically better frame rates and detail.

The second issue is that the performance of Macs is restricted to whatever CPU and GPU architecture your Mac has baked in. There’s no support for CPU swaps, or pairing with a dedicated graphics card, which can give PC gamers dramatically better frame rates and detail. A PC with Nvidia’s RTX 5080 is probably going to smoke a Mac Studio, no matter how optimized a game might be.

That said, recent Macs can handle demanding titles. Even the M2 MacBook Air runs

Death Stranding
at about 30 frames per second — 60fps would be more ideal, but this does that many other 3D games should run just as well, if not faster. I’d recommend an M3 or M4 system if you want to play something like

Baldur’s Gate 3
, preferably paired with at least 16GB of RAM. While some games may run fine with 8GB, most developers are targeting 16, and some gaming PCs are already shipping with 32GB or more. Low RAM can result in bottle-necking while new assets are loaded.

If you’re into 2D games like Balatro or Stardew Valley, just about any modern Mac will be fine. The same goes for titles that deliberately use low-poly 3D rendering, such as Dredge.

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What does the Mac game catalog look like?

Adequate, but nothing more

The M4 Mac mini running Resident Evil 4.

There are a decent number of games available through sources like Steam and the Mac App Store — some other high-profile examples being Cuphead, Civilization VII, Lies of P, Total War: Warhammer III, and the Resident Evil 4 remake. If you’re not picky about having access to the latest and greatest titles, there’s no reason you can’t make a well-equipped Mac your only gaming system, maybe even a console substitute if you hook a Mac mini up to a TV — we’re talking years’ worth of playtime. And as long as Apple can maintain or grow Mac marketshare, there’s no reason to think the reservoir will dry up completely.

The access issue is going to bother some people, however. Because the console and PC gaming markets are more lucrative, developers usually target those first, if they port to the Mac at all. First-person shooters are conspicuously absent — there hasn’t been a Call of Duty game for the Mac in years, and don’t expect Doom: The Dark Ages to show up, either. You can’t even play Destiny 2, despite the fact that Bungie got its start as a Mac-centric studio, and free-to-play games need maximum reach to sell their add-ons.

A Mac is best suited to fans of strategy, puzzle, adventure, and role-playing games.

Virtual reality is a no-go. Without dedicated graphics cards, Macs can’t match PC VR, and the VR industry is slowly transitioning towards standalone headsets anyway. You might think the

Apple Vision Pro
would come to the rescue, but no dice — especially with a $3,500 price tag and no bundled controllers. It’s actually better for linked PC games than anything on a Mac.

A Mac is best suited to fans of strategy, puzzle, adventure, and role-playing games. You will find action and sim games, but they’re not the platform’s strong suit.

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Should you get a Mac for gaming in 2025?

Some final thoughts

If I were shopping today, I wouldn’t buy a Mac specifically for gaming. For the price of a MacBook Pro or Mac Studio, you can get a substantially more powerful Windows PC (gaming-wise) with access to a much larger catalog. If you’d rather spend Mac mini levels of cash, there may still be better options in the form of a

PlayStation 5
or a

handheld gaming PC
. Personally, I use a Steam Deck, which supports many games that Macs don’t, including

Elden Ring
and The Last of Us Part II Remastered.

Things may be different for you if gaming is just a perk rather than a leading concern.

Things may be different for you if gaming is just a perk rather than a leading concern. Yes, you can play a decent selection of games on a Mac, and anything with an M3 chip or better will probably be good enough for a while, as long as it has 16GB of RAM.

If you’ve got the funds, an M4 Mac will offer better future-proofing. Don’t think you need to spend money on a Mac Studio or high-end MacBook Pro — those machines are powerhouses, but not for gaming purposes.