The best free games for Mac are CS:GO, DotA2, League of Legends, Hearthstone… but
you’ve heard that before, haven’t you? So have we, and we wanted to try something different,
so we dug deep to find more free Mac games that may be worth our time. Here’s what we
found…
Genshin Impact
One note before we start the list – Genshin Impact is not officially supported for macOS
systems. Because of this, having it on the list seems a bit controversial, but in our defense,
Genshin Impact is so insanely popular it broke the record for best video game first-year
launch ever, and the game itself is so undemanding, there are several ways to play it with
workarounds like windows emulators. Several gaming sites cover these. From what we
found at least, this Genshin Impact on Mac article has the most comprehensive list of
methods. All other games on the list have native macOS versions.
Genshin Impact is an anime-inspired open-world action RPG that’s primarily a single-player
experience, with some multiplayer PvE content. In this game, you get to explore the beautiful
world of Teyvat, meet its many colorful characters, and battle the wide variety of enemies
and bosses that come in your way. What starts you off on your journey is the desire to find
and free your sibling, who gets taken at the beginning of the game, but as you progress, you
get entangled in the various factions populating Teyvat, which greatly expands your quest
tree.
In Genshin Impact, you start the game with one main character, whom you get to customize,
but you also get to play with other characters, who join you on your journey. You can have
immediate access to a maximum of four, but you can play as only one of them at any given
time. A major mechanic of the game is the ability to switch between characters, including
while you are in the middle of fights. Since each character has their own unique abilities,
skills, and playstyle, it’s advantageous to be able to switch between them on the go in order
to use the best-suited character for a given situation.
The combination of the character-switching mechanic and the fast-paced, highly-responsive,
and visually stunning combat system is one of the main reasons behind Genshin Impact’s
immense popularity. The other reason is the gorgeous world in which the game takes place.
Even if you simply have to travel from point A to point B, it’s still a pleasant experience, since
everything around you looks so vibrant.
One of the weaker aspects of the game is its story. Not that it’s bad per se, but it’s also
nothing to write home about, so let’s just say that it’s serviceable. Besides, there have been
some notable storytelling improvements introduced with the most recent patches.
Overall, Genshin Impact is a pretty good game – fun combat system, beautiful world and art-
direction, and a good amount of content that gets frequently updated to add new stuff.
Unturned
The next title on the list, Unturned, is a game that looks like a mix between Lego, DayZ and
Minecraft. It is a zombie survival sandbox game with heavy focus on crafting and base-
building. Unturned has a variety of modes and maps, most of which are created by its
community, but the most popular mode remains the default one, called Survival. In it, you are
dropped at a random location on the map and your goal is to survive for as long as you can
against both the blocky zombies and other players who have their eye on your loot. Other
than that, there’s no other endgame goal, though some maps offer optional objectives.
At first look, the game itself may not seem particularly appealing. Though it does offer some
beautiful landscapes, the blocky art-style of its characters and items as well as the not-so-
friendly community may drive off a lot of people. However, spending some time with the
game and learning basics such as how to build a base, craft useful items, and how to acquire
weapons, will quickly change your perspective and show you just how fun Unturned can be.
Also, even if it may not look like it at first, the gameplay of Unturned is very good and
meticulously thought-out. Whoever made this game realized everyone wants to stay in place
to avoid damage, so to keep you moving, they decided to introduce thirst, hunger, infection,
and bleeding mechanics that force you to explore the world looking for food, drinks,
bandages, and medicine. So all in all you have to move and face new dangers, or wait and
slowly become handicapped. The game keeps a pretty good balance in giving you urgency
by slowly tightening a leash around your neck every time you get lazy.
And though we said that the community of Unturned isn’t one of the nicest, this doesn’t mean
there aren’t exceptions. Every so often, you will come across another survivor who, rather
than trying to kill you and steal your loot (like most Unturned players tend to do) will instead
help you build a base and fend off the zombies and the hostile players. This is truly one of
the best experiences you could have in this game – finding a random stranger, becoming
friends, and facing the dangers of Unturned together, as a team.
| In conclusion, Unturned is a solid title with a lot to offer to fans of the zombie survival genre – |
| it just takes a bit of getting-used-to before the game’s strengths really start to shine through. |
Stumble Guys
To get a good idea of the next game, imagine your parents getting you those new
headphones you always wanted… from some Chinese knock-off brand. Trying not to offend
them, you do your best to hide your disappointment, you connect the headphones to your
phone, and play your favorite song. To your surprise, the headphones turn out quite decent,
making you wonder if these cheapos might be better than the original.
Stumble Guys is a lot like that. At first glance, the game looks like a half-assed attempt to
piggyback on the success and fame of Fall Guys, and, to be fair, this isn’t too far removed
from the truth. The game is a battle royale platformer, where you and thirty-one other players
control customizable ragdoll characters and race through all kinds of wacky obstacle courses,
until a single player is declared the winner.
But, like that guy in class who repeated your joke, but louder, and then everybody laughed,
Stumble Guys blew up in popularity, and is now even more popular than the game it initially
tried to imitate. However, that would not have been possible if Stumble Guys wasn’t a solid
title in its own right, which it is. The game took the true and tested Fall Guys formula of
having quick, casual matches, short enough to play on your lunch break, and made them
even shorter, so now you can even sneak one in, while your boss isn’t looking. The
gameplay controls are as simple as they come. Aside from controlling where your character
goes, your only other options are to jump and dash, and perfecting your timing with these
two is the key to success. Just don’t get misled by the game’s cartoony graphics and goofy
animations – it’s a rat race out there, and no one’s going to cut you any slack, so be prepared
to claw your way to the finish line because, in the end, there can be only one!
To summarize, this is a neat little game, ideal for when you just want to unwind, that offers a
good variety of obstacle courses, so that it doesn’t get repetitive too quickly.
War Thunder + World of Tanks
War Thunder and World of Tanks Blitz are both multiplayer action-shooter games about war,
where you are given access to some of the world’s deadliest killing machines – tanks, military
aircraft, and warships.
As its name would suggest, World of Tanks Blitz focuses on only one of those three modes
of destruction – you guess which one. In contrast, War Thunder lets you drive, fly, or sail into
battle. Both games feature a stupidly large selection of military vehicles from different time
periods, with War Thunder obviously offering the greater variety, due to its inclusion of navy
and aviation.
Another thing that stands out about the latter title is its painstaking levels of realism. War
Thunder lacks anything close to a conventional damage system with hit points. Instead, the
game sees each vehicle as a combination of modules, some of which are more vulnerable
than others, just like in real life. For instance, you get a good shot at the gas tank of a fighter
jet and the thing will quickly light up like the night sky on New Year’s Eve, or you blow up the
engine of a tank, and it gets demoted to a glorified turret. You can expect similar levels of
complexity and attention to detail in all aspects of the game, down to stuff such as the actual
real-life characteristics of each vehicle.
On the flip side, though there’s still a lot of depth in World of Tanks Blitz, the game takes a
more liberal approach towards realism. Hitting a vulnerable spot will deal extra damage, but
you still need to drain the opponent’s hit points bar to send their tank to the scrapyard.
The two games also differ significantly in their game modes and matches. The modes in War
Thunder are generally more realistic, and you won’t see anything too wacky happening there.
In World of Tanks, you do have modes that are semi-grounded in reality, but you also have
stuff like matches with reduced gravity or tanks that have special abilities. Also, the most
popular game modes in War Thunder pit two teams of 32 players against each other,
whereas the teams in World of Tanks Blitz are much smaller – 7 players per team. To put it
simply, if World of Tanks Blitz is the Counter Strike of military vehicle shooters, then War
Thunder would be something from the Battlefield series.
In conclusion, though these two titles may seem similar, they are ultimately very different
games geared towards different types of players. Personally, I enjoyed World of Tanks more.
The reason is I don’t have the patience to learn the proper angle at which I must hit a T-26,
so that the shot won’t glance off. Other than that, both are great games if you are into
shooters, military vehicles, and explosions.
EVE Online
EVE Online is a sci-fi MMO game, released all the way back in 2003, but has received
countless updates over the years that have modernized its graphics and gameplay, making it
a worthwhile title in 2023.
In EVE, you play as a spaceship commander, whose brain is linked to their ship’s computer.
Like in other MMOs, there’s no specific endgame objective, and you are free to make your
own way through a vast virtual world which, in this case, consists of about eight thousand
star systems. You can focus on trade, exploration, research, or combat, or you could spend
most of your gameplay time repeatedly clicking on a rock, which is also known as mining.
This is the PvE side of the game and each of these activities lets you gain experience and in-
game currency to upgrade your ship or get a better one, so you can finally join in the actual
fun. Because you can labor away as a glorified FedEx courier or a mindless mining drone, or
you can join an interstellar organization and take part in massive PvP space battles, where
the levels of coordination and teamwork will give real-life military commanders a run for their
money.
For me, the things that stand out the most about EVE are its enormous universe and the
community that populates it. Everything in the game happens on a single server instance,
called Serenity, with only the Chinese player base using a separate server – Tranquility. In
plain English, this means that all logged in players are sharing the same in-game universe,
so everything you do has the power to affect everybody else in the game’s world. Sure, if you
are a nobody with little more than a tin can for a spaceship, your actions won’t matter a great
deal, but there are players out there who can single-handedly fund a war and have a long-
lasting impact on the entire EVE community.
In a sense, EVE isn’t simply a game, but rather a fascinating virtual world with its own history,
politics, wars, organizations, and societies, all of which have been built by the players
themselves, over the many years since the game’s initial release. It is, however, a title that
requires a lot of time and patience to get good at, so I can’t recommend it to people who
want to play something casual for an hour at a time. On the flip side, if you have enough free
time to spare, like multiplayer sci-fi games, and don’t mind learning a ton of new gameplay
mechanics, definitely go check it out!
Crusader Kings 2
Here’s an existential conundrum – what makes a good medieval king? Is it good financial
decisions, sound military strategy, or being respected and revered by your subjects?
Absolutely not. The right answer is you marry off your daughter to the sole male heir of a rich
and powerful house and then inherit the lands and riches of that house after your son-in-law
suffers a… tragic accident.
If any of this sounds like something that may interest you, then you’ve got to check out
Crusader Kings 2. If you look it up on Steam, you’ll learn that this is a 4X Grand Strategy
game set in the medieval ages, where you must micromanage every aspect of your state
and dynasty – economics, politics, trade, warfare, family relations, and more. The end
objective is really up to you, as the game doesn’t give you one, but a good universal goal
would be to conquer the world, which is something you can totally do in Crusader Kings 2.
Obviously, since this is a Grand Strategy game, a lot of times playing it will feel like going
through the equivalent of a spreadsheet encyclopedia, trying to figure out why your vassals
are once again in an open rebellion and why you are still broke after raising the taxes for the
fifth time this year. However, among all that drudgery, you will eventually uncover the true
essence of Crusader Kings 2, which is all the crazy, yet believable medieval antics that can
take place in any given playthrough. From trying to ruin a rival dynasty’s bloodline by
marrying your deformed, cretinous daughter to their only prince, to seducing a gay Pope,
thereby gaining the favor of the Catholic Church, the game offers endless possibilities, where
the only limit is the player’s own depraved imagination. It is a game where anything could
happen and that can surprise you at every turn, but this is also what’s great about it.
Crusader Kings 2 is truly the embodiment of the saying that the journey is more important
than the destination. It’s a great title for anyone interested in strategy games and medieval
history. And even if the gameplay may seem too complex and intimidating at first, Crusader
Kings 2 is actually one of the more accessible 4X strategies, so even newcomers to the
genre should have a relatively easy time learning the game’s ins and outs.
Doki Doki Literature Club
The final title we’ll talk about is a dating sim… and also a psychological horror. The game is
called Doki Doki Literature club, and it starts off as you would expect based on the game’s
trailers: you play as a reclusive guy who’s invited to join a literature club, where all of the
other four members are females. Unsurprisingly, you get to date each of the four girls and
the gameplay mostly consists of clicking through dialogue and occasionally making choices
that partially affect the narrative.
But somewhere along the way something happens, that flips the entire game on its head.
You are still technically playing a dating sim, but now the game is also a psychological horror,
and it is not clear why until the very end. An unusual combination of genres, for sure, but
Doki Doki Literature club pulls it off brilliantly. We can’t really tell you much else about what
happens without ruining the experience for you, but let’s just say that the themes explored in
Doki Doki are a lot more mature than one would expect just by looking at the game’s cutesy
anime-inspired art-style.
Finally, we must also say that the warning at the start of the game is there for a reason –
don’t play Doki Doki Literature Club if you are a child or someone who’s easily-disturbed. On
the flip side, we strongly recommend the game to anyone looking for a gaming experience
that goes beyond the established norms and is willing to break the mold in order to deliver a
truly unique experience that can’t be found in most other titles.
Honorable mentions Starcraft II
Starcraft II may not be as popular now as it was in its heyday, but trust me when I tell you that you’ll hardly find a more polished and balanced RTS game that still looks great today
even though it was released more than 12 years ago. And even if you are not a fan of the
real-time strategy genre and find this game too challenging due to the need to multitask all
the time, it is still a worthwhile experience for its single-player content alone. The game
features several big single-player campaigns, which tell a captivating story of an
interplanetary war. You get only the first campaign (Wings of Liberty) for free, but even this
will give you a good 20 hours of single-player fun. And, of course, there’s also the multiplayer
side of things for those ready to test their RTS skills against other players. Overall, Starcraft
2 is a great package that you can get for free and play on your Mac, so it’s definitely an easy
recommend from us. Really, the only reason we are adding it as an honorable mention is
that not many players are into real-time strategy games.
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is another very well-made game that will be appealing to only a small group
of people due to its specific style. It is a survival, city-builder, colony sim game where you
start with a small group of dwarves and your goal is to build a prosperous colony. However,
you don’t directly control any of the dwarves, and you can simply give them tasks that they
may or may not perform based on their physical and mental state, personal quirks, mood, etc.
It’s a fascinating game, where all kinds of wacky stuff can happen, but also one that is
incredibly complex and in-depth, so it can be rather overwhelming to newcomers, which is
why it doesn’t have a more widestream appeal.
Something important to note is that here we are referring to the original dwarf fortress game.
Only the original one is free and available for Mac. The new enhanced version of Dwarf
Fortress that’s available on Steam is a paid game and currently lacks a Mac version.