Since 1996, Feral Interactive has been bringing games to the Mac, earning it a reputation for high-quality PC and console conversions. MacRumors asked the publisher and developer how the Mac gaming landscape has changed in the intervening years and where it could go.
The Mac platform has had some changes over the years, but bringing games to it has had its challenges. There is a community of Mac users who like to play games on their computers. There is an audience for good games that are well suited for the platform.
That doesn't mean Mac users haven't been frustrated by Apple's lack of interest in the Mac as a gaming machine. Apple has hamstrung the Mac's graphics power by using integrated Intel graphics and designed-for-mobile GPUs in its laptops and all-in-one desktop machines. The other big variable it has always had to consider when it comes to porting a triple-A title is how demanding a game is, and if a Mac.
Almost all the most popular Apple computers, particularly their entry level laptops, used Intel Integrated Graphics. That was a problem. We had to spend a large part of extended development cycles to make sure games ran as well as possible on devices which were not intended or designed for gaming.
Alien: Isolation.
The problem is that the games push the limits on hardware, and we need to be confident that we can get a game to run well on a broad range of machines, often stretching back several years. The transition to Apple Silicon opens up some exciting opportunities. Compared to the previous generation of Intel-based Macs, it offers a big step up in power, and for games that translate to better performance and enhanced graphical fidelity.
This gives us a greater degree of freedom in looking at more demanding games, as we have greater confidence that they can be made to work well on a broad range of Macs, which represent a big chunk of the potential audience.
It has been more than hardware that has been a challenge to overcome. Apple encouraged game developers to use Metal, a low-overhead, platform-optimizing, low-overhead API for developing graphics-intensive software, after it dethroned OpenCL and OpenGL.
Total War: Rome has been re-mastered.
When Apple announced Metal for macOS, its implementation of OpenGL already fell well short of what was needed for gaming, and it was missing many of the features needed for gaming.
We started work on Metal for Mac on the day Apple announced it, and provided a lot of feedback and feature requests to Apple, which they acted on.
While developing exclusively for Apple Silicon, Feral has already released two native games, Total War: Rome Remaster and Total War: Warhammer III.
There is a movie called Total War: Warhammer III.
While it understands the importance of continuing to support owners of older machines, we are already beginning to see how much more demanding games are.
Total War: Warhammer III was only available for Apple Silicon Macs. Reflecting its acceptance of the gradual demise of Intel-powered Macs as gaming platforms, Feral admitted that there were severe performance and stability issues on Intel Macs with integrated Intel GPUs. We can't support them for this game and won't be able to add support for them in the future.
The future of Mac gaming is positive, as is the prospects for Apple Silicon. We intend to bring great games to the platform, make them run as well as possible, and support them for a long time.
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