Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[Nugat Trailers]

For a brief tl;dr, what happened was CDPR updated 1 and 2 last year, June or July, I believe, to run on 64 bit Intel Macs. However they'd immediately crash on M series Macs, which created a lot of upset.

In October this year, they announced they'd update 1 and 2 to run on M series Macs, but that would require dropping intel support, so they gave a 30 day announcement.

 

[galad]

They still run on Intel, but now requires macOS 11 or later.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

We’re happy to announce that SnowRunner keeps expanding by releasing today on Mac! As of today, Mac users can immerse themselves in the complete SnowRunner experience, with all content released since the game's inception in April 2020, aligning with the depth and intensity available to players on every other platform!

Embracing its core pillars as the open-world sandbox off-road simulation, where players navigate through extreme landscapes, conquer treacherous terrains, and complete challenging missions using a fleet of powerful vehicles, SnowRunner is now available on the Mac App Store. In addition to the base game, three years of post-launch content and many DLCs, this version empowers players with crossplay functionality to seamlessly connect and conquer challenges alongside friends no matter the platform. SnowRunner on Mac is also fitted with the extensive mod support offered by our partners at Mod.io, allowing players to extend the game beyond any limit thanks to the creativity of its rich community.

Marking this monumental occasion, SnowRunner also introduces two thrilling new DLC packs: the Kenworth W990 DLC and the Jack of all Treads Tire Pack. The Kenworth W990 DLC boasts a brand-new, formidable truck, amplifying the fleet and opening new avenues for daring off-road conquests. Meanwhile, the Jack of all Treads Tire Pack offers over 50 tire and rim combinations, allowing players to fine-tune their vehicles for the most challenging terrains and climates. These two exciting DLCs are standalone products and are not included in the Year 3 Pass. They must be purchased separately to expand your SnowRunner experience.

 

[Homy]

Great! It's on Steam too with 50% discount for $15. On MAS it costs $40. It's universal binary for Intel too.

SnowRunner on Steam

Get ready for the next-generation off-road experience! Drive powerful vehicles and overcome extreme open environments to complete dozens of challenging missions solo or with up to 3 friends!

store.steampowered.com

Has a free DLC too.

SnowRunner - Anniversary DLC on Steam

Celebrate one year of the ultimate off-road experience with SnowRunner’s Anniversary DLC! Get two new trucks for free: the CAT 681 and International HX 520 give you all new options for adventuring across the harsh landscapes, and look good doing it.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Chancha]

Great! It's on Steam too with 50% discount for $15. On MAS it costs $40. It's universal binary for Intel too.

SnowRunner on Steam

Get ready for the next-generation off-road experience! Drive powerful vehicles and overcome extreme open environments to complete dozens of challenging missions solo or with up to 3 friends!

store.steampowered.com

Has a free DLC too.

SnowRunner - Anniversary DLC on Steam

Celebrate one year of the ultimate off-road experience with SnowRunner’s Anniversary DLC! Get two new trucks for free: the CAT 681 and International HX 520 give you all new options for adventuring across the harsh landscapes, and look good doing it.

store.steampowered.com

View attachment 2315659

It is only about $25 in the App Store for my region. Do I lose anything like DLC if I get that instead of the Steam version?

 

[salamanderjuice]

It is only about $25 in the App Store for my region. Do I lose anything like DLC if I get that instead of the Steam version?

You lose getting a Windows version that could be used on a PC or Steam Deck down the line. I'd check if Steam is cheaper in your region too.

 

[Homy]

 

[Nugat Trailers]

It looks to be very competitively priced as well. Steam beats it currently, but only because there's a 72% discount.

 

[Chancha]

You lose getting a Windows version that could be used on a PC or Steam Deck down the line. I'd check if Steam is cheaper in your region too.

On my Steam region it is also 50% off at just about $12.5 so half of the Mac AppStore price.

And more importantly is this bit:
Note: the game has cross-saves across all platforms EXCEPT the App Store version.

This is begging to be bought on Steam, lol.

 

[Chancha]

The cat game Stray is having 34% off on Steam now where the deal is ending on November 29th.

The Mac version is supposed to launch on Dec 5th.

Do we have any way to know if buying the Steam version now will mean getting the Mac / Apple Silicon version later?

 

[diamond.g]

The cat game Stray is having 34% off on Steam now where the deal is ending on November 29th.

The Mac version is supposed to launch on Dec 5th.

Do we have any way to know if buying the Steam version now will mean getting the Mac / Apple Silicon version later?

If the game is available on Steam, yes. If it is Mac App Store only, no (obviously).

 

[Chancha]

If the game is available on Steam, yes. If it is Mac App Store only, no (obviously).

According to the developer's launch trailor page on YouTube, it says:
"STRAY is coming to macOS on December 5 through the Mac App Store and Steam. "
I think I should just buy it on Steam now, and can use the refund policy if it ends up getting the RE8 treatment where the Apple Silicon version is App Store exclusive.

Edit:
I found this bit on an Apple Insider article:
"The game will be available on December 5 through both the Mac App Store and Steam for $30. It will be available exclusively for Apple Silicon."

Well this mean there is only going to be one Apple Silicon version, no Intel. And Steam is selling it so that means buying through Steam will get Apple Silicon. Safe to buy.

 

[Homy]

Gaming on M3 Max!

 

[Homy]

2024-2025 on PS5
2025-2026 on PC
2028-2029 on Mac? Or simultaneous release on PC and Mac?

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Halo fangame Installation 01 has announced the Mac version of the game has been shelved until further notice since they don't have the resources or manpower for a Mac version.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1728193073266540880

 

[diamond.g]

Halo fangame Installation 01 has announced the Mac version of the game has been shelved until further notice since they don't have the resources or manpower for a Mac version.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1728193073266540880

They don’t have a Mac to do the testing with.

 

[diamond.g]

2024-2025 on PS5
2025-2026 on PC
2028-2029 on Mac? Or simultaneous release on PC and Mac?

Is Kojima Productions doing the macOS port for the first game? They didn’t do the pc port at all.

 

[Chancha]

Is Kojima Productions doing the macOS port for the first game? They didn’t do the pc port at all.

They are, during WWDC Kojima even came on the event video announcing that. He even said “future games from the studio” will also be made for / ported to the Apple ecosystem (or something to that effect).

The Death Stranding 2 trailer above was made public long before WWDC 2023, so no Apple product is mentioned. But since then Kojima Productions has not made much noise about the development if at all. With how we imagine Kojima liking to take things slow, I am only going to assume a Mac port of DS2 isn’t going to be launched at the same time as the PC / consoles. But you never know.

 

[diamond.g]

They are, during WWDC Kojima even came on the event video announcing that. He even said “future games from the studio” will also be made for / ported to the Apple ecosystem (or something to that effect).

The Death Stranding 2 trailer above was made public long before WWDC 2023, so no Apple product is mentioned. But since then Kojima Productions has not made much noise about the development if at all. With how we imagine Kojima liking to take things slow, I am only going to assume a Mac port of DS2 isn’t going to be launched at the same time as the PC / consoles. But you never know.

Hmm, well they didn't mention doing the PC port of future games, so maybe the macOS version could come out before the PC one if they work on it at the same time (as the console version)? They didn't self publish the PC or PS versions (of DS1) though so that is an interesting difference.

 

[Homy]

Halo fangame Installation 01 has announced the Mac version of the game has been shelved until further notice since they don't have the resources or manpower for a Mac version.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1728193073266540880

Had never heard of it but not surprising for a free fan-made game that's been in development for almost a decade and now is switching to UE 5. With no money to be made they have to focus on the largest market. They're also stopping the Linux port.

 

[Chancha]

Hmm, well they didn't mention doing the PC port of future games, so maybe the macOS version could come out before the PC one if they work on it at the same time (as the console version)? They didn't self publish the PC or PS versions (of DS1) though so that is an interesting difference.

Oh yes I forgot that part about console “timed exclusivity“. With DS1 we kind of know SONY got to dip the plate due to how much help was needed for Kojima to build his own studio in the first place. It seems DS2 as a sequel has to get that treatment, also there are technical necessity since the Decima engine belongs to Guerrilla Games, a SONY sub-sid. If by extension, having a PC version by itself is already a port, then it is not unlikely that the Mac version can happen at the same time. Especially considering timed-exclusivity expiring should be the best time to release on all other platforms.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

CrossOver was just updated to 23.7 today, but that's not the big thing. The big thing, is the fact it's bundled with Game Porting Toolkit 1.1. You can get a year of CrossOver for 70% with code BADASS70 today on Cyber Monday only.

This is big. The licensing agreement forbids bundling GPTK in commercial products, only allowing it bundled in free products, and yet Apple's allowing Codeweaver to put it into CrossOver, and before GPTK 1.1 was even available for developers to even download themselves.

I wonder if Apple is changing strategy. The unveiling of GPTK overnight made Mac Gaming real, but not for the porting tools in GPTK, but for the Wine layer built into it. That compatibility layer overnight suddenly turned the Mac into an actual gaming machine, and now with the 1.1 update and it being bundled in CrossOver, performance has skyrocketed. Not to mention they've slowly been making adjustments to the licensing of GPTK to be more flexible and open.

Honestly, the future of Mac Gaming looks to be compatibility layers not native ports. macOS just does not have a big enough audience of gamers to warrant going through all the hoops of creating a port of a game for a brand new architecture, using a proprietary API vastly different than what developers are used to. Which is why compatibility layers make more sense just like on Linux, which is why the Steam Deck has had such tremendous support since it's so easy for developers to be able to support Deck, only needing to tweak Proton a bit to fix an issue instead of needing to make a massive patch. And with the massive leap in performance in GPTK 1.1, the loss in potential performance is greatly shrinking to the point we could see GPTK be on par with Steam Proton in the near future.

 

[Homy]

CrossOver was just updated to 23.7 today, but that's not the big thing. The big thing, is the fact it's bundled with Game Porting Toolkit 1.1. You can get a year of CrossOver for 70% with code BADASS70 today on Cyber Monday only.

This is big. The licensing agreement forbids bundling GPTK in commercial products, only allowing it bundled in free products, and yet Apple's allowing Codeweaver to put it into CrossOver, and before GPTK 1.1 was even available for developers to even download themselves.

I wonder if Apple is changing strategy. The unveiling of GPTK overnight made Mac Gaming real, but not for the porting tools in GPTK, but for the Wine layer built into it. That compatibility layer overnight suddenly turned the Mac into an actual gaming machine, and now with the 1.1 update and it being bundled in CrossOver, performance has skyrocketed. Not to mention they've slowly been making adjustments to the licensing of GPTK to be more flexible and open.

Honestly, the future of Mac Gaming looks to be compatibility layers not native ports. macOS just does not have a big enough audience of gamers to warrant going through all the hoops of creating a port of a game for a brand new architecture, using a proprietary API vastly different than what developers are used to. Which is why compatibility layers make more sense just like on Linux, which is why the Steam Deck has had such tremendous support since it's so easy for developers to be able to support Deck, only needing to tweak Proton a bit to fix an issue instead of needing to make a massive patch. And with the massive leap in performance in GPTK 1.1, the loss in potential performance is greatly shrinking to the point we could see GPTK be on par with Steam Proton in the near future.

To think it will be that easy to play games on Mac with a compatibility layer is just a dream. The proof is Proton and Crossover themselves. To imply that everything simply works and the experience will be even greater than native ports is simply not true. As a BetterTester for Crossover I know it’s a cat-and-mouse game. New updates fix broken games but at the same time broke other games, both in Crossover and Proton. So the gamers always lack peace of mind not knowing if the next update will make or break things. Not to mention the performance penalty that comes with compatibility layers in many cases.

At the same time we have many old Mac ports which still work fine in Rosetta. There are many games like Shadow of Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex MKD, Bioshock Remastered 1-2, XCOM 2, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Alien Isolation, Mad Max and Metro Exodus that don’t work in Crossover but run perfectly as native ports. Many games with anti-cheat still are not supported in Crossover. OpenGL games like Wolfenstein games don’t work at all because Crossover only supports up to OpenGL 2.1.

There are several examples of Proton updates that have broken working games and many games still don’t work or have bad performance. Many games on www.protondb.com have ”Kaputt” or ”Bronze” status.

[SOLVED] Latest Proton broke many of my games :: Steam for Linux Steam Play

I used to be able to run a number of my games perfectly fine under Proton (BioShock Remastered, for example), but the latest Protons have broken them. The worst part is, I cannot simply go back to using the older releases of proton because the Steam for Linux client is overwriting/deleting the...

steamcommunity.com

Proton 5.13 breaks all non-Linux games · Issue #4278 · ValveSoftware/Proton

As the title says. I have tried to run several games now with the new Proton 5.13 and nothing works. Titles tested so far are Doom Eternal, Torchlight, Stealth Inc. 2, Dear Esther: Landmark Edition...

github.com

Steam Proton Games do not start after last update

After my last update, about one week ago, all my proton steam games do not launch anymore. They were all working fine previously, but now they silent crash. No errors, nothing. I have tried different versions of proton. Different kernels. Verified them. Uninstalled them and reinstalled them...

forum.manjaro.org

Recent Mesa update seems to have broken Steam/Proton games / Multimedia and Games / Arch Linux Forums

bbs.archlinux.org

Ubisoft just broke their games on Linux desktop and Steam Deck

Third-party launchers on Steam are once again being a massive nuisance. First it was EA breaking everything on Linux and Steam Deck and now it's Ubisoft telling everyone to hold their beer.

www.gamingonlinux.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/k2bn3x

Don’t really understand your point about Mac ports ”hardly anyone is gonna buy that is a nightmare to make”. We have seen several examples of developers who don’t think it’s a nightmare and have worked with Apple to bring their games to Mac. We have several upcoming games. If people hardly buy Mac games it’s not because of the native ports. Such people wouldn’t buy the games anyway. Buying games on Steam also gives you both Mac and PC versions so with one purchase you get two games, like Lies of P, NMS, Snowrunner, Stray and more. So getting two native games that works great is always more appealing than one native for PC with bugs and worse performance on Mac through a compatibility layer, if it would work at all.

I guess it all comes down to how much you game. Some like me are happy with fewer native games and some want more games even if they have worse performance and more bugs through a compatibility layer. At least as it is today we have both options. We can buy a native game or use Crossover/AGPTK. Without native ports we would only have a half-baked solution.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

There are several examples of Proton updates that have broken working games and many games still don’t work or have bad performance. Many games on www.protondb.com have ”Kaputt” or ”Bronze” status.

Welp time for a repeat of my previous reply

Hundreds of Borked and Bronze games out of over 10,000 on Steam that are Gold or Platinum, and most of the games that don't work use an anticheat that block running the game on any non-Windows OS.

I dunno about you but 10,000 working games is a lot more than about 1,000 that don't.

[SOLVED] Latest Proton broke many of my games :: Steam for Linux Steam Play

I used to be able to run a number of my games perfectly fine under Proton (BioShock Remastered, for example), but the latest Protons have broken them. The worst part is, I cannot simply go back to using the older releases of proton because the Steam for Linux client is overwriting/deleting the...

steamcommunity.com

This is from 2020 and got marked as solved lmao. Plus Proton lets you use any version, not necessarily the newest version, so if a Proton update breaks compatibility, guess what, you can just roll it back with a push of a button.

Proton 5.13 breaks all non-Linux games · Issue #4278 · ValveSoftware/Proton

As the title says. I have tried to run several games now with the new Proton 5.13 and nothing works. Titles tested so far are Doom Eternal, Torchlight, Stealth Inc. 2, Dear Esther: Landmark Edition...

github.com

Also from 2020. Also again, you can just roll back updates if it doesn't work.

Steam Proton Games do not start after last update

After my last update, about one week ago, all my proton steam games do not launch anymore. They were all working fine previously, but now they silent crash. No errors, nothing. I have tried different versions of proton. Different kernels. Verified them. Uninstalled them and reinstalled them...

forum.manjaro.org

This is from March and got fixed, and was a problem exclusive to Manjaro.

Recent Mesa update seems to have broken Steam/Proton games / Multimedia and Games / Arch Linux Forums

bbs.archlinux.org

This was in June and got fixed, and was not a problem with Proton but with Mesa, which is a open source Graphics library for APIs like Vulkan. Completely unrelated to Proton.

Ubisoft just broke their games on Linux desktop and Steam Deck

Third-party launchers on Steam are once again being a massive nuisance. First it was EA breaking everything on Linux and Steam Deck and now it's Ubisoft telling everyone to hold their beer.

www.gamingonlinux.com

That's Ubisoft lmao. They break literally everything PC related. I'd like to remind you they've broken their own games causing them to become unlaunchable due to their horrible DRM multiple times and had to rely on cracked copies of their games to fix that issue.

Ubisoft Used Pirate Hack to Fix Rainbow Six Vegas 2

So Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was patched earlier this month with a slew of upgrades and gameplay changes, all of it free. Unfortunately, it also inserted a disc check - big problem for those who got the game via digital download.

kotaku.com

Also this is from February and last I checked that also got fixed since Ubisoft's games are mostly listed as Gold in ProtonDB, several being listed as Platinum. Are you noticing a trend here? Everything you linked got fixed quickly, since the means to fix it was very easy that it required little to no input from the developer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/k2bn3x

2020 again! Bro you are really grasping at straws trying to paint compatibility layers as unreliable that you're pulling SOLVED PROBLEMS from 2020 to try to prove your point.

If compatibility layers were really worse than native ports like you keep saying they are, the Steam Deck would not be the breakout success it is now. I just cannot wrap my head around why you are so abrasive to compatibility layers when the vast majority do not care if it's a native port or a compatibility layer. People want their favorite games, and compatibility layers deliver that.

 

[Homy]

most of the games that don't work use an anticheat that block running the game on any non-Windows OS.

Another problem native games don't have.

Bro you are really grasping at straws trying to paint compatibility layers as unreliable that you're pulling SOLVED PROBLEMS from 2020 to try to prove your point.

You missed my point completely "bro". It's the continuing pattern with every new update to Crossover and Proton. It's obvious you don't have much experience of Crossover at least.