Are The Latest Apple MacBooks Any Good For Gaming? Everything You Need To Know Before Buying

In 2025, Apple announced a slew of gaming-related news during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in line with its macOS Tahoe 26 update. To start with, Apple shared the launch of an updated Apple Games app that will bring together all your App Store games and let you interact and invite other Apple players to play. In many ways, this is another way they are signaling their commitment to make their ecosystem more gamer-friendly, making it easier to keep track of games from your iPhone, iPad, to Mac device. To add to this, Apple also announced an interesting Game Overlay feature, which is set to appear in the upper-right corner of your MacBook screen. Apart from being able to control things like sound or brightness, you'll also have the option to manage your controller profile, enable power saving, and interact with friends.

Next, Apple unveiled a ton of native Mac games designed to work with its silicon technology, which include indie games as well as popular franchises like Cyberpunk and Hitman: World of Assassination. Lastly, they released several features that can help developers work with the platform for games in the pipeline, like Metal 4. Knowing this, the future looks bright for gamers who have been itching to get in on the Mac ecosystem, but still have hesitations about leaving their consoles or Windows laptops behind. But, before you get an Apple MacBook for gaming, here are some things that you should consider before checking out.

In terms of performance, several Apple Silicons hold their own against other powerful AMD graphics cards already, according to the Geekbench Metal Benchmark Chart. For its MacBooks, the MBP, which runs on the M1 Max chip, even ranks higher than the AMD Radeon HD W6600X, the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT, and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT. While already considered an older model, this already has a stunning Liquid XDR display and ProMotion with up to 120Hz refresh rates that truly give a lot of visually-focused games justice.

In terms of budget, MacBooks have always positioned themselves as premium products, so even the cheapest M4 MacBook Air retails for just under a thousand dollars. And if you want to get your hands on the powerful 16" M4 Max MacBook Pro, you can expect to drop $3,999.99. However, it's important to know that independent testing, such as by NanoReview.Net, revealed it still lags behind the GeForce RTX 4090 across the board despite being the M4 Max released a full two years later..

But take note, while the latest MacBook models have started to show promise as gaming units, it's definitely not as flexible as a gaming PC that you've built from scratch. Not to mention, there are plenty of Windows gaming laptop brands, including more budget-friendly options. Plus, because of Apple's commitment to exclusivity, you also can't swap out components and upgrade as necessary or when you can afford to, like you would a custom gaming PC.

On its own, MacBook users can enjoy the existing and optimized platform-exclusive games on Apple Arcade. So, if you're into more casual gaming just to pass the time or when you need to clear your head, there are already more than 200 games you can access. If these aren't really your style, you might be met with some disappointment when you venture outside of it. In its May 2025 Hardware & Software Survey, which it uses to determine its investment strategy, Steam states that only 1.85% of its users use Mac devices. This alone should be a clue as to why it and similar gaming platforms have smaller libraries compatible with the macOS ecosystem. On its website's Games page, Steam lists 24,000+ Mac games, which pales in comparison to the 130,000+ games that are Windows-compatible.

Although, as mentioned earlier, there has been an increasing number of games that can be played using Apple silicon, so all hope is not lost. That said, Mac versions of AAA games usually arrive much later than their console or PC counterparts. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 was released in 2020 for Windows, but is still not available on Mac more than four years later. Thankfully, if your internet connection is fast enough, it is still possible to experience a lot of Windows-only games via cloud gaming platforms, like NVIDIA GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Amazon Luna. However, some platforms like PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming are still out of the question.