Dec 31, 2018  Steven Marx has been playing games on the Macintosh since his brother brought home a used Mac 512k in 1986. He has been reviewing and writing about Mac games for over ten years, including for Inside Mac Games, MacNN and currently at Mac Gamer HQ where he.

Seemingly overnight, Battle Royale games have become all the rage. Led by Player Unknown Battleground but now surpassed by Fortnite, 100-player last-person-standing games have caught more attention than any other genre before.

In Fortnite, you jet glide to your chosen spot on an island and start hunting other players and gathering gear. Every encounter is critical, and as you get closer to the final 10 players, you can feel the tension rise to incredible levels. No wonder the entire gaming community is so obsessed.

Worried about updating to macOS Catalina? Fortnite is now updated to 64-bit and supports Catalina!

In this review:

Fortnite is everywhere. Even celebrities such as Drake are playing it and breaking records on Twitch.

But can your Mac run the hottest game in the world right now?

Fortnite is so big, we decided to do something big too. Instead of testing one of the finest FPS games for Mac on our usual three machines, we tested it on more than two dozen Macs, thanks to you, our readers.

What’s new with Fortnite on Mac? We first reviewed the game on May 22, 2018, but Fortnite is an online game that is constantly evolving. Season 7 is the latest example, bringing new game modes, features, and gear to the game.

More importantly, Fortnite continues to slowly improve its Mac Performance. You can read more about it below.

First things first, is Fortnite worth it?

Fortnite Battle Royale didn’t become one of the top games in the world by chance. It’s just so much fun to play.

Follow the sounds of gunfire to seek out enemies or hide out and gather resources until the final moments of the game. You decide how to play, but with a gradually narrowing storm center forcing players together, eventually, you’re going to have to fight it out.

It’s easy to understand why both reviewers and gamers love this game. Battle Royale games create tension and excitement like no other genre can and the addition of crafting makes for an even more fun and interesting game.

Add to that well-balanced gameplay, a good variety of weapons, a surprisingly non-toxic community, a generous free-to-play system, and you get the hottest game of the moment.

IGN (9.6/10) loves the game and wrote:

Fortnite’s zany style and unique blend of shooting and building almost never offers anything less than an outstanding time… Fortnite sets itself apart from the crowd by giving you the freedom and tools to express your own personal playstyle.

Most professional reviewers came to similar conclusions, as can be seen from the game’s official Metascore. Interestingly, while millions love the game, online user reviews are usually negative… That’s another internet mystery…

Fortnite Mac Requirements

Now, before we dive into our benchmarks and results, you’ll want to make sure your computer meets the minimum system requirements.

According to Epic Games’ official website, these are Fortnite Mac requirements:

• OS: OS 10.12 Sierra
• Processor: 2.4 GHz Core i3
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Video: Intel HD 4000
• Hard Drive: 19 GB

If your Mac is from 2012 or newer, you will probably be able to join the party.

At first sight, this seems like an easy game to run, but we all know how wrong system requirements can be…

Into first-person shooters? These are our favorites:

The Test: Can you play Fortnite on Mac?

We usually test games using our 3 in-house Macs, but because Fortnite is the most popular game to come to MacOS in years, we knew we had to do something bigger.

We started out by testing the game on these three machines:

• iMac (5K, 27-inch, Late 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2013): 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)

On top of that, we launched a huge reader challenge, and with your help, managed to test the game on these models:

• 27-inch iMacs from 2012, 2014 and 2015
• 21-inch iMacs from 2013 and 2017
• 13-inch MacBook Airs from 2014, 2015 and 2016
• 13-inch MacBook Pros from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017
• 15-inch MacBook Pros from 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017
• Mac Mini from 2012
• Mac Pro from 2010

Why these machines? We always try to test a game on as many different models as possible. But more than that, we aim to test completely different types of Macs: desktops, laptops, old and new. The aim is to give you a flavor of how the game will run on different models. Because we have a lot of results, we decided to separate them into three different categories:

• High-end Macs (machines with powerful graphics cards)
• Recent entry-level Macs (recent machines that do not have powerful graphics)
• Older Macs (machines that are either recent or have powerful graphics)

Finally, these are the in-game settings we used:

• 1280×800 or equivalent resolution
• 100% 3D resolution
• Low Quality Preset
• VSync: Off

We tested the game using Count It, our in-house Mac FPS counter tool, playing a normal Solo battle royale game for around 5 minutes.

The Results: Mac performance was poor

As mentioned before, the game has changed a lot in the past few months, especially on Mac.

We knew we had to test the game again and can confirm that as of now, January 2019, Fornite on Mac runs much better than it did back in March 2018.

On our three machines, we recorded the following results:

The raw figures are not any higher compared to our previous results, but the devil is in the details.

The game runs much more stable now. The ridiculous frame drops that plagued the game (especially during those first minutes of each match) are long gone. The improvement is noticeable on all three machines.

You can find every single one of our “older” results submitted by the community below. Just keep in mind that those machines wouldn’t run the game any faster today but overall stability would be higher:

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

• Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
• 20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
• 30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
• 45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
• 60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

If you have a high-end machine with a fast dedicated graphics (like an iMac or 15-inch MacBook Pro), you’ll be able to run the game just fine.

In fact, if you have a high-end Mac, you can safely increase settings to the Medium Preset. That will result in good performance and much better-looking graphics.

Can you play Fortnite on a MacBook Pro?

But what if you, like most Mac users out there, have a 13-inch MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air, will you be able to play and enjoy Fortnite on Mac? According to our data, you can if you have a very recent model.

Fortnite officially supports the Intel HD Graphics 4000 or better. As the last model to use it is from 2013, all recent MacBook Pros should be able to run Fortnite just fine. In theory.

And our results confirmed that theory:

The game runs great on most machines, with smooth and fast FPS levels. But only the higher-end models with dedicated graphics cards can handle settings higher than Medium. Using our 2016 13-inch MBP, we tested the following settings:

• 1280×800 and Low settings: 43.9 FPS
• 1280×800 and Medium settings: 22.1 FPS

Going from Low to Medium settings requires some horsepower but the graphical improvements are significant. We definitely recommend using Medium settings if your machine can handle it and still run at 40 FPS or better.

This is a point where we have to insist. Fortnite is a competitive shooter where stutters can be a disaster. You need the most fluid experience possible to have a chance to win a face-off.

Can my Mac run Fortnite?

If you’re reading this, that is probably the only question you care about right now. But as always, the answer is never straightforward: It depends.

With a little luck, we tested a machine very similar to yours and in that case, you only have to see the results. If the game runs at 40 FPS or more, you’re good to go. If not, you’ll have to skip Fortnite, at least for the time being.

From the 20+ results we received, we can conclude that:

• Fornite on MacBook Pro, iMac or Mac Pro: The game will run fine on machines from 2016 onwards.
• Fornite on MacBook Air or Mac Mini: Performance will be too limited to actually enjoy the game
• Fortnite on older Macs: Machines from 2015 or older won’t be able to run it unless they have a powerful dedicated graphics card.

My advice? Fortnite for Mac is free. If you really want to test it, download it and see for yourself if your Mac can run it. Even if it can’t, it won’t cost you a dime to try!

How to run Fortnite on Mac?

If your Mac can barely run Fortnite (below 35-40) on Low settings, there is one last thing you can try…

You can always reduce 3D resolution to 75% or less. That will result in a significant performance improvement but that comes at a cost. Using our 2013 13-inch MBP, we can see big improvements:

• 1280×800, Low settings, 100% 3D resolution: 23 FPS
• 1280×800, Low settings, 66% 3D resolution: 35.2 FPS

With the 3D resolution set to 66%, our 2013 MBP runs the game 40% faster. Even better, it brings us closer to much more acceptable FPS.

Reducing the 3D resolution obviously hurts the game’s looks. I was prepared to recommend against lowering 3D resolution because of how blocky and ugly the game looked, but in reality, I forgot all about it once I started tracking another player. It was glorious and fun.

Deciding how bad 66% 3D resolution looks or whether it is acceptable will be up to you.

I wouldn’t recommend going lower than 66% though because at some point gameplay will suffer too. Can you really be effective if you can’t differentiate faraway enemies from trees?

The best Fortnite Mac settings for performance

If you’re struggling with performance, you can try the following settings. These should increase the game’s FPS at least a little:

• Fullscreen mode
• Set frame rate limit to 30 (to decrease those big frame rate drops)
• Quality: Low
• V-sync off
• Reduce the 3D resolution setting

Don’t expect huge improvements, but this could provide those extra 5 FPS to make Fornite playable on your Mac. The biggest improvements come from reducing the 3D resolution but visual fidelity will suffer a lot…

The best Fortnite Mac settings for graphics fidelity

If you have a high-end Mac and want the game to look great, you can either increase the settings or resolution.

As an example, these tests were all performed on our high-end 2014 27-inch iMac:

• 1344×756 resolution and Low settings: 104.7 FPS
• 1344×756 resolution and Medium settings: 71.9 FPS
• 1344×756 resolution and High settings: 52.3 FPS
• 1344×756 resolution and Epic settings: 38.5 FPS

Going from Low to Medium reduces FPS by 31% but the game looks much better with added shadow effects and details. On the other hand, going from High to Epic reduces FPS by 26% but the graphics improvement is barely noticeable.

As always, I recommend avoiding the Epic, Extreme or Max settings and increase the resolution instead. Using that same iMac, increasing the resolution or going from Medium to High settings generates a similar FPS loss the higher resolution looks much better:

• 1344×756 resolution and Medium settings: 71.9 FPS
• 1920×1080 resolution and Medium settings: 51.9 FPS
• 1344×756 resolution and High settings: 52.3 FPS
• 1344×756 resolution and Epic settings: 38.5 FPS

But as tempted as you are to increase the settings even higher, remember that speed is more important than looks in a game like Fortnite. You’ll have a much better experience on Medium settings and 70 FPS than Epic settings and 38 FPS.

PS: These are our favorite accessories for playing/testing games on Mac!

Download Fortnite for Mac

Want to give it a try? After all, this is an excellent free-to-play game that doesn’t hide its best content behind paid walls or micro-transactions. That alone is reason enough to give it a try and see how much you like it:

Fortnite Mac Review

It’s not surprising Fortnite is a demanding game. After all, it looks great and takes place in huge environments filled with trees and buildings. Yet playing Fortnite on Mac was nearly impossible for months. Gladly, Fortnite on Mac has improved a lot and now runs fast enough for most.

Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission (this is how we pay the bills). This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

This may seem like a pretty subjective category, and I'd like to preface this list by saying that it most definitely is. That being said, there are some games that are just empirically good — great graphics, fun to play, great story, whatever. And though some folks might have you believe that Macs aren't meant for gaming, there are actually a ton of awesome titles to choose from.

I'll try and leave out games that you can play on iPhone and iPad unless the Mac is the best place to play 'em.

Best Mac Strategy Games

Here are the best games for Mac!

Note: Make sure you double-check the system requirements for each game before you make a purchase.

Firewatch

Firewatch, at its core, is a mystery game set in the Wyoming wilderness. You play as Henry, a man who decided to give the simpler life a try by joining a fire lookout team. Set in 1989, you watch for smoke during an especially hot, dry summer, aided via radio by your supervisor, Delilah. However, something draws you out of your tower and into the woods, where you must explore the unknown wild, making choices that could make or break your relationship with Delilah.

This is a gorgeous game, with a beautifully crafted open world, true-to-life characters, and a story that changes, depending on the choices you make throughout your story. Cissy Jones from the first season of The Walking Dead plays Delilah, and Henry is portrayed by Rich Sommer of Mad Men fame.

If you're looking for more than just a game — an experience — then Firewatch should be at the top of your to-play list. What starts as a simple game of watching for forest fires becomes a strange, twisty-turny, mystery-filled rabbit hole with new discoveries at every turn. It's like a book you just can't put down.

• $19.99 - Download now

XCOM 2

Set 20 years after XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 continues the turn-based tactics franchise in style, with much of the same gameplay that you love from the first one.

You'll once again play as the Commander, who, until the beginning of the game, was in alien stasis following Earth's surrender to the aliens. Once rescued by Central Officer Bradford, you'll resurrect XCOM and go to town reclaiming Earth from the aliens, one turn at a time.

If you love a good turn-based tactics game and you also love games like Halo or Mass Effect or even the first XCOM game for Mac, definitely check this one out.

• $49.99 - Download now

Life is Strange

Life is Strange is an episodic mystery game of sorts that has you playing as Max Caulfield, a photography students who randomly discovers that she has the ability to rewind time (saves her best friend's life). The pair end up investigating the disappearance of a fellow student, while Max struggles with the realization that altering the past can have consequences in the future.

Essentially, you go through the entire game making choices, and the choices you make can screw things up for you down the road or make life much easier (think Until Dawn). With well-crafted characters and a moving story, Life is Strange is for the folks who like a cinematic experience fraught with emotion (á la Heavy Rain). The first episode is $5 and you can buy subsequent episodes via in-app purchases.

• $4.99, with in-app purchases - Download now

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This game may be a little old (like first generation Xbox old), but it's a classic and the fact that it's on the Mac is just wonderful. It's 4,000 years before the Galactic Empire and the Sith are just wiping out Jedi left right and central. So, of course, you're the last hope of the Jedi and you have to lead your brothers and sisters in arms in a last stand of sorts against the ultimate evil.

The cool part is you actually get to ultimately choose which side you want to be on, opting to conquer or save your fellow Jedi, using Force powers and sweet lightsaber moves all the way through. You get to customize your character and they change as the game goes on, depending on the choices you make and your style of play (kinda like the Fable series).

If you love an action-packed romp around the cosmos and, of course, Star Wars, then definitely download this right now. Keep in mind that it is an older game, but if you grew up with it like I did, it'll be a nostalgia-filled journey.

• $9.99 - Download now

Limbo

In Limbo, you play as a nameless boy who's unsure of what happened to his sister, so you enter Limbo looking for her, A.K.A. the 'edge of hell'. As the boy, you must journey through Limbo, as you encounter only a few other human characters who either attack you, run away, or are dead. You have to puzzle and platform your way to the end, and I'll be honest: It's rather unsettling.

Like, really unsettling.

There isn't much for a soundtrack, aside from nature sounds and physical sounds of running, jumping, and hits and such. If you're like a dark, creepy game, with a very open ending that's been hotly debated, then definitely check out Limbo. It's unlike anything you've ever played and the lack of a real narrative really gives it its atmosphere. (Watch out for that damn spider… BLECH).

• $9.99 - Download now

Braid

Braid is very similar to one of the most popular games of all time. Get into the actual gameplay, and you'll be like, 'THIS IS JUST SUPER MARIO', but then you'll sit back, listen to the AMAZING soundtrack, notice the little detail in Tim's hair while it flows in the wind when he runs, enjoy the beautiful scenery and interesting-looking enemies, and you'll be like, 'SUPER WHO?'.

Best Mac Games 2014

In all seriousness, Braid is a lovely little game and it really emphasizes Tim's motives for rescuing the princess without ever saying exactly what they are or what exactly his 'mistake' was. Gameplay is quite simple; it's a Mario-style platformer, and you have to collect puzzle pieces along the way and slowly build a large puzzle in each world.

If you like platformers and love games with out-of-this-world soundtracks, then check out Braid.

• $9.99 - Download now

Thomas Was Alone

Believe it or not, playing a platformer as a faceless rectangle can actually be pretty fun. Of course, the right elements have to be there, like a killer soundtrack and, simply put, absolutely lovely narration by British radio a TV presenter Danny Wallace.

He tells the story of Thomas, a rectangle who is, you guessed it, alone. Thomas has to jump and slide his way through each level, entering a portal each time. Basically, all you can do is move right, left, and jump as you platform along, solving puzzles, and don't forget — the game's called Thomas Was Alone. This get significantly more interesting than you might think at the beginning. Get ready to feel stuff … for shapes. Not even kidding.

• $8.99 - Download now

Doom 3

What's there to be said? It's Doom — on the Mac. You're part of an elite marine division, sent to protect a Martian teleportation facility, and things are hunky dory until you're invaded by 100% evil aliens. So, you're going to have to walk down hallway after hallway, mowing down demonic aliens that can only be described as 'WTF'.

Doom is the classic first-person shooter and this 3D adventure only ups the ante, bringing you further into the world of monsters and insane weaponry. There's an online multiplayer element to this iteration, so replayability is definitely there.

If you're into classic first-person shooters where gore and horror abound, then Doom 3 is your bag, baby.

• $9.99 - Download now

Gone Home

Gone Home is a story exploration game where you examine objects and open drawers and doors to discover clues. You've been away for a year and come home thinking your family will be there to greet you, only to discover that the house is empty and you have no idea why.

Things may seem kind of creepy at first, and you'll uncover your sister's journal, complete with narration, as well as other objects from your childhood and things left behind. You likely won't expect the ending and you'll definitely feel all the feels throughout your journey, so be prepared for a lot of reading and an almost cinematic experience.

Gameplay is simple and barebones, but you like a good story exploration game, definitely check this one out, since it's pretty heavy on story.

• $19.99 - Download now

Sleeping Dogs

Crime never pays. I mean it does in terms of the money that gangs make from drugs and what have you, but it all comes back to bite them in the ass sooner or later. In Sleeping Dogs, you get to do the biting, playing as Hong Kong cop, Wei Shen, who's a streetwise badass martial artist, straddling the law and playing both sides to take down the city's biggest Triad gang.

If you enjoy open world games and have any love for the badassery of classic Hong Kong action movies, then Sleeping Dogs is right up your alley. You basically just get to go around kicking the crap out of criminals, while also playing the bad boy in some heavy undercover activity.

You'll have to live and learn as the game goes on, while honing your skills to survive twists and turns that are matters of life and death.

If you're up for an exciting action/adventure full of violence and intrigue, you got it.

• $29.99 - Download now

Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is a very involved roguelike dungeon crawl with fantastic art, and an interesting twist on the genre, centering on the stress of adventuring. If your characters' stress levels get too high, you're gonna have a bad time.

You'll fight wave after wave of all sorts of ghouls in turn-based combat, simply trying to keep your party alive and calm. This game isn't just about defeating monsters, but about defeating your party's personal demons as well. You'll have to chill out at taverns to keep everyone's stress in check, camp to deliver pep talks, and save the characters you love from all-too meaningful permadeath.

Fans of Lovecraft will adore Darkest Dungeon for it's great horror and awesome hand-drawn art style that gives everything a gritty, visceral feel. If you like scary-ass RPGs, then check it out.

• $24.99 - Download now

Heroes of the Storm

Heroes of the Storm is a MOBA game in teams of five fantasy characters battle against one another for supremacy in a series of different game modes. You'll have to destroy opposing team members, as well as their structures to gain points for your team and ultimately win the match. Many MOBA-style games have the same problem: one person can be a hero and win the game on their own, while screwing over the rest of their team. Not the case in Heroes of the Storm, where if one team member isn't up to snuff, the rest of the team feels it.

One team, one dream!

Made by Blizzard, this is one of the best ARTS games around, with awesome characters, solid voice acting, great graphics, and necessary teamwork that doesn't make you want to drive your Magic Mouse through your 5K iMac screen.

HotS is free to play, but you'll be stuck with the playable characters offered to you, which rotate every week. You can earn gold in the game, but to get anything decent will take a looooong time. Therefore, you can buy heroes, skins, and mounts in the game with USD. Otherwise, play for free and just enjoy.

• Free, with in-app purchases - Download now

Portal 2

It doesn't matter which platform you're playing on, Portal 2 is hands-down one of the greatest video games of all time. It builds on the fun and weirdness of Portal from the Orange Box and throws you into a more fascinating story, with puzzles that never really feel like puzzles, since you're out of the testing chambers just trying to escape.

You once again play as Chell (the voiceless captive with the sweet boots and 'stubborn will to live') who is once again trying to escape the Facility, which she totally ruined years earlier. Wheatley, a personality core voiced by Stephen Merchant, revives Chell to escape the Facility with him, but all is not as it seems.

This game is incredibly atmospheric, often creepy and weird, as well as gut-bustingly hilarious. You'll learn about the history of the ruined Facility, mainly from GLaDOS (in an unusual form) and voice recordings from Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson, voiced by the legend J.K. Simmons (the funniest part of the game).

Portal 2 also has a sweet multiplayer mode where you play as testing robots Peabody and Atlas, working with a partner to frustratingly solve testing chambers (you might lose friends over some of the more difficult levels).

If you're at all into physics puzzles and hilarious, quirky games, then Portal 2 is not to be missed. Hell, even if you don't like puzzle games, play it. You'll be a better person for it. You can even download the stellar soundtrack for free

• $19.99 - Download now

Rocket League

It's soccer. With cars. There really isn't much more to say except that's it's freakin' awesome. Think of a physics-based FIFA with wild and crazy vehicles and full-frontal multiplayer mayhem. And if those aren't enough hype buzzwords then imagine yourself as a small child, forced to play soccer in order to 'build character'. Now imagine that you're a child driving a monster truck around a massive enclosed arena, smacking giant balls around and flying and flipping around because physics.

Yeah.

If you're kind of into multiplayer sports games, but prefer them with a side of absolutely wacky, then Rocket League is totally for you.

• $19.99 - Download now

Undertale

Undertale is for those of you who are just sick and tired of having to murder innocent, repulsive monsters. If you've ever thought 'why can't I just talk to the monster instead', then you should play Undertale.

In this indie RPG, you play as a child who has fallen into the Underground, which is a large, isolated region beneath the Earth's surface, separated by a magical barrier. Along the way, you'll meet monsters and have to face them in mini bullet hell combat, where you can choose to spare them instead of killing them. The choices you make affect the outcome of the game, including the story, dialogue, and the characters you meet, as you try and make your way back to the surface.

Undertale was released to excellent critical praise, garnering Game of the Year nods from multiple gaming publications. If you love a good top-down RPG, with fantasy elements and the ability to be a pacifist, then Undertale is great for feeling the feels or kicking some serious hiney.

• $9.99 - Download now

Civilization V

I have Civ V on this list instead of VI, but might add VI when the bugs are ironed out. Sid Meier's Civilization V has you ruling the world from the dawn of man all the way into the space age, where you will wage wars and conquer nations in the pursuit of progress and total domination.

You'll also discover new technologies, strike treaties, and all that other diplomatic stuff that world leaders do.

There is a multiplayer mode, though it is restricted to a LAN.

If you're into amazing turn-based strategy games and love a good game of Risk, then Civ V is calling to you. Answer it.

• $29.99 - Download now

Myst

Originally released in 1993, Myst was recently revamped for the Mac, so that you can explore the open world of Myst Island and its Ages in a gloriously rebuilt environment. The world is completely interactive and you'll have to discover and solve puzzles in order to find books containing access to all of the Ages.

The ending of the game changes depending on the choices you make, and you'll be torn between helping one of two brothers or their father, with your own fate entirely unknown until it's too late. Myst is an absolute classic and the graphics update puts a modern spin on it, bringing the Myst you grew up with into the 21st Century.

If you love a classic puzzle game, a story filled with intrigue and twists, and open-world exploration games, then totally check out Myst.

• $17.99 - Download now

What do you play?

What's your favorite game for the Mac? Any absolute essentials I may have missed? Let me know in the comments below!

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