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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games
- Thread starter Homy
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Probably, on Windows on ARM Steam reports the CPU as "Virtual CPU". Seems like this a problem that started post-June beta release too...
Unless they add "ARM-64" to the survey like in the client VirtualApple will be showing zero next month.
"Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition stuns with its futuristic sci-fi metropolis, and WHAT THE CLASH? delivers nonstop laughter with silly, never-before-seen competitions. As creepy as it is cozy, DREDGE immerses iPad users in a charming fishing game with a haunting mystery."
"Finalists in the Mac Game of the Year category created beautifully crafted worlds with compelling storylines:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows, for designing a stealthy journey through feudal Japan.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, for captivating players with stunning, futuristic visuals.
Neva, for depicting an emotionally moving tale enhanced with striking imagery."
"Finalists in the iPad Game of the Year category brought gamers on new adventures with immersive narratives:
DREDGE, for delivering a haunting mystery and smooth gameplay to players.
Infinity Nikki, for immersing players in the whimsical world of Miraland.
Prince of Persia Lost Crown, for delivering an epic adventure from start to finish."
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/12/apple-unveils-the-winners-of-the-2025-app-store-awards/
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-announces-finalists-for-the-2025-app-store-awards/
"Finalists in the Mac Game of the Year category created beautifully crafted worlds with compelling storylines:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows, for designing a stealthy journey through feudal Japan.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, for captivating players with stunning, futuristic visuals.
Neva, for depicting an emotionally moving tale enhanced with striking imagery."
"Finalists in the iPad Game of the Year category brought gamers on new adventures with immersive narratives:
DREDGE, for delivering a haunting mystery and smooth gameplay to players.
Infinity Nikki, for immersing players in the whimsical world of Miraland.
Prince of Persia Lost Crown, for delivering an epic adventure from start to finish."
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/12/apple-unveils-the-winners-of-the-2025-app-store-awards/
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-announces-finalists-for-the-2025-app-store-awards/
The Darkside Detective and Jackbox Party Pack 4 for Mac are free on Epic:
Pure Badminton is coming to Mac:
store.steampowered.com
Pure Badminton on Steam
Pure Badminton is the most realistic Badminton simulation game.Experience the sensations of badminton, in a fast, technical and strategical game.
Control 2 coming to Mac!!! Check the end of the video for the "Mac App Store" logo. Also coming to Steam. https://www.remedygames.com/games/control-2
Control is coming to iOS and iPad so I would expect this to come to Mac and maybe iPad soon given that apple is probably paying them
I’m not sure I understand. Control is already on macOS.
Absolutely no evidence that Apple is paying. Especially given Nat Brown ex-Apple states that they didn’t pay for ports, and at most offered marketing and technical help.
Was about to post. Great! Better quality trailer on Remedy's YT. Again this shows that there is little incentive for developers to port AAA games to Mac. 😄
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Control first was released on Mac. If anything that's the reason Control 2 is coming. You don't need to expect. The press release and the trailer (the one I posted) says it's coming to Mac.
There is no proof of "exclusive deals" or Apple paying the developers for porting AAA games. The only known payment model is for Apple Arcade games where Apple pays upfront. Arcade has no AAA games, only simpler games. There are rare examples that could be considered as such, like Fantasian and Beyond A Steel Sky but no other AAA games can be found on Apple Arcade. AAA games have much larger budget and Apple would have to pay much more than for the games on Arcade but at the same time Arcade payments have been cut in recent years according to reports so it’s more unlikely Apple would pay even more for AAA games.
Apple’s software marketing manager Leland Martin says ”We’re seeing titles come to both Steam and the Mac App Store, and we’re seeing games come to the Mac via Steam exclusively. It’s really up to the developer’s choice, and we help them whichever decision they make.” Apple offers instead technical help during the development. They have helped 4A with Metro Exodus, Larian with BG3, Piranha Bytes with Elex 2 and Hello Games with No Man’s Sky for free to optimize their games and have worked with Capcom, Bloober Team (Layers of Fear, The Medium), Fallen Leaf (Fort Solis) Ubisoft on AC Shadows and recently with CDPR on Cyberpunk.
According to the latest interview with Nat Brown Apple also tries to convince the developers that there's a market for AAA games on Mac/iPhone/iPad.
Let me clarify. I’m saying that remedy is currently working on iPad iPhone control 1 so since they are working on that I’m not surprised that control 2 is coming to mac
Monster Train 2 is now available for Mac.
store.steampowered.com
- Requires Mac with Apple Silicon
- Supports Steam Cloud saves, including transferring existing saves from Windows or Steam Deck
- Players on Mac who transfer saves from Windows or Steam Deck may need to turn down Scroll Sensitivity in the Gameplay settings
Monster Train 2 on Steam
Monster Train returns with all new clans, new enemy factions, new challenges, new modes and more! Defend your Pyre in the classic three-tiered, vertical gameplay that made the original roguelike deckbuilder a hit.
What is interesting is it seems like this was the only game that actually had the Mac App store tag. So it makes you wonder if RE:9 is a day and date release. I was also surprised how many games were announced for the Switch 2 as well.
Yeeeeees !!! I hope it will be well optimized like the 1st one
Where is your evidence that they helped port all of those games by providing apple engineers? If that is what they are going they need to buy ip and develop their own games
Yes! With my Mac Studio M2 Max. It runs Okay-ish. But it could be better. Under 60fps
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All the Resident Evil Saga is once again on sale.
Divinity Original Sin 2 is dirty cheap too.
To be honest, I don’t recall. I just played for 15 minutes.
You claimed that ”apple is probably paying them” so I could also say ”probably” as proof but anyone who’s been following this thread and Apple the recent years knows about that. There have been press releases by the game companies, news articles/stories and even videos by Apple.
Here Apple talks about how they helped 4A and Larian Studios to optimize Metro Exodus, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2:
Optimize high-end games for Apple GPUs - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer
Optimize your high-end games for Apple GPUs: We'll show you how you can use our rendering and debugging tools to eliminate performance...
Here Piranha Bytes talks about how they ”worked closely with Metal engineers” on ELEX II:
Here Hello Games' CEO Sean Murray tells about No Man’s Sky: ”We've been working on this move to Metal for nearly two years now. About halfway through, Apple got involved as a close and very helpful partner, we couldn't have done it without them.”
Exclusive Q&A with the creator of 'No Man's Sky'
AppleInsider managed to get a few moments with Hello Games CEO Sean Murray to ask a few questions about the "No Man's Sky" launch on Mac. Here's what he had to say.
Here, in an interview with IGN, Tim Millet, Apple’s VP of Platform Architecture and Jeremy Sandmel, Apple's Senior Director of GPU Software talk about supporting the developers: ”The developers are going to work with us to do it. This is really about the game developer creating the right experience for the game player. We have all the tools and technology and support for them to do that. And we're really excited to see, several of them already have and we're looking forward to more.”
Apple Answers of All Our iPhone 15 Pro Questions: 'It's Going to be the Best Game Console'
Apple is really leaning into the "Pro" aspect of the iPhone 15 Pro.
In an interview with Macgamecast Nat Brown, previous lead engineer of Apple’s Metal team, hinted at Apple’s strategy of not paying the developers by saying "You know, we may not pay you, but we're definitely going to make customer demand here”. Further he said Apple’s message to the developers is not about offering ”some money” or ”huge marketing” but that there is ”a huge addressable market” which the developers should target. According to him that’s how Apple could convince CDPR, Capcom and Larian to port their games.
He also said on Andrew Tsai’s Discord about people saying Apple should pay for Mac ports that ”There’s not enough customer demand. We all have great, inexpensive places where our whole catalog lives.”
Assigning some engineers and offering hours of technical support to game developers and helping them to solve problems and optimizing their games is far easier than taking the risk of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on buying a game studio/hiring people and pay for development and publishing a single game for 2% of the Steam market share. Cyberpunk had a total budget of $514 million. Apple didn’t have to spend that much to help bringing the game to Mac. Other studios make profit on PC and console market first and then can afford to make a Mac port but Apple would never spend so much money on exclusive Mac titles. Apple has no interest in making their own AAA Mac games.
At the same time this raises some questions. If there is not enough customer demand like Nat Brown said why do studios like Bloober Team, Rebellion and Remedy keep making more AAA games to Mac? Bloober Team made Layers of Fear and The Medium. If those games didn’t do well why are they porting Cronos: The New Dawn too? Rebellion made Sniper Elite 4. Why are they making Sniper Elite 5? If Control Ultimate Edition didn’t sell well why is Remedy making Control Resonant for Mac too?
They’ve had the opportunity to analyze the Mac market and still their conclusion is it’s a good idea to port new AAA games without Apple paying them. That wouldn’t be possible if they felt they had been fooled and mislead by Apple about the market size and customer base.
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Ignoring Bloober, I wonder how much of that is because they want iOS/iPadOS versions of those games (where they would stand to make more money).You claimed that ”apple is probably paying them” so I could also say ”probably” as proof but anyone who’s been following this thread and Apple the recent years knows about that. There have been press releases by the game companies, news articles/stories and even videos by Apple.
Here Apple talks about how they helped 4A and Larian Studios to optimize Metro Exodus, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2:
Optimize high-end games for Apple GPUs - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer
Optimize your high-end games for Apple GPUs: We'll show you how you can use our rendering and debugging tools to eliminate performance...developer.apple.com
Here Piranha Bytes talks about how they ”worked closely with Metal engineers” on ELEX II:
Here Hello Games' CEO Sean Murray tells about No Man’s Sky: ”We've been working on this move to Metal for nearly two years now. About halfway through, Apple got involved as a close and very helpful partner, we couldn't have done it without them.”
Exclusive Q&A with the creator of 'No Man's Sky'
AppleInsider managed to get a few moments with Hello Games CEO Sean Murray to ask a few questions about the "No Man's Sky" launch on Mac. Here's what he had to say.appleinsider.com
Here, in an interview with IGN, Tim Millet, Apple’s VP of Platform Architecture and Jeremy Sandmel, Apple's Senior Director of GPU Software talk about supporting the developers: ”The developers are going to work with us to do it. This is really about the game developer creating the right experience for the game player. We have all the tools and technology and support for them to do that. And we're really excited to see, several of them already have and we're looking forward to more.”
Apple Answers of All Our iPhone 15 Pro Questions: 'It's Going to be the Best Game Console'
Apple is really leaning into the "Pro" aspect of the iPhone 15 Pro.nordic.ign.com
In an interview with Macgamecast Nat Brown, previous lead engineer of Apple’s Metal team, hinted at Apple’s strategy of not paying the developers by saying "You know, we may not pay you, but we're definitely going to make customer demand here”. Further he said Apple’s message to the developers is not about offering ”some money” or ”huge marketing” but that there is ”a huge addressable market” which the developers should target. According to him that’s how Apple could convince CDPR, Capcom and Larian to port their games.
He also said on Andrew Tsai’s Discord about people saying Apple should pay for Mac ports that ”There’s not enough customer demand. We all have great, inexpensive places where our whole catalog lives.”
View attachment 2588589
Assigning some engineers and offering hours of technical support to game developers and helping them to solve problems and optimizing their games is far easier than taking the risk of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on buying a game studio/hiring people and pay for development and publishing a single game for 2% of the Steam market share. Cyberpunk had a total budget of $514 million. Apple didn’t have to spend that much to help bringing the game to Mac. Other studios make profit on PC and console market first and then can afford to make a Mac port but Apple would never spend so much money on exclusive Mac titles. Apple has no interest in making their own AAA Mac games.
At the same time this raises some questions. If there is not enough customer demand like Nat Brown said why do studios like Bloober Team, Rebellion and Remedy keep making more AAA games to Mac? Bloober Team made Layers of Fear and The Medium. If those games didn’t do well why are they porting Cronos: The New Dawn too? Rebellion made Sniper Elite 4. Why are they making Sniper Elite 5? If Control Ultimate Edition didn’t sell well why is Remedy making Control Resonant for Mac too?
They’ve had the opportunity to analyze the Mac market and still their conclusion is it’s a good idea to port new AAA games without Apple paying them. That wouldn’t be possible if they felt they had been fooled and mislead by Apple about the market size and customer base.
My assumption overall is there is enough internal support for porting the games to macOS, and maybe the technical support needs for macOS users is lower than we think, that they are breaking even on their efforts. Plus as I said earlier it helps them prep for iOS/iPadOS where there are more users.
I do wonder about some of the support levels Apple provides though. Like seriously why does BG3 still not have MetalFX support. Has Apple been back to Larian since they cut ties with the Mac porting developer they were using?