Skip to main content TechRadar the technology experts Search TechRadar View Profile België (Nederlands) Deutschland North America US (English) Australasia New Zealand Tech Radar Pro Tech Radar Gaming Nintendo Switch 2 Best laptop Best web hosting NYT Wordle today Recommended reading MacBooks are now legitimate gaming machines – and the future looks promising Apple just leveled up Mac gaming with these two new features – and it's about time Apple's WWDC 2025 has a lot to offer - but forget Apple Intelligence, what about the games? WWDC 2025 might be a big deal for Apple, but it won't have the one thing I really want to see Mac gaming just leveled up – Steam finally runs natively on Apple silicon The 18 best Mac games to play in 2025 Sniper Elite 4 is a mini marvel on the iPhone 16 Pro Desktop PCs I just experienced super-smooth Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra settings on a Mac, but the developers say there’s more to ‘squeeze out’ of Apple Silicon Jacob Krol 15 June 2025 How CD Projekt RED turned a MacBook Pro into a gaming laptop for Cyberpunk 2077 When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future) We’ve known that Cyberpunk 2077 is eventually coming to the Mac, and developers CD Projekt Red (CDPR) have been hard at work – and still are – at getting the title fit to run on any Apple Silicon-powered device. That means the massive AAA title, which has been frequently used to benchmark systems, will be able to run on the M1 chip or newer. It was reconfirmed at WWDC 2025 – Apple’s week-long developer conference – that it would be arriving later this year, and back with the launch of the new Mac Studio, TechRadar saw a demo of it running on that super-powered computer. Now, though, I had the chance to get another demo of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition – a newer version of the in-development title – on a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 Max chip and 128GB of RAM. You may like MacBooks are now legitimate gaming machines – and the future looks promising Apple just leveled up Mac gaming with these two new features – and it's about time Apple's WWDC 2025 has a lot to offer - but forget Apple Intelligence, what about the games? It was on ‘Ultra’ settings with a buttery smooth and excellently rendered 120 frames per second. And yes, this performance is derived from Apple’s M4 Max chip – no discrete GPU required. Further, this was fully taking advantage of Apple's Metal 4, coming later this year, including MetalFX Frame Interpolation. It looked fantastic and was responsive, but that had me thinking about the plans to launch this on any Apple Silicon Mac. I was curious about performance on less powerful chips within Apple’s lineup, as the requirement for the title is expected to be Apple Silicon, meaning it should run base M1, M2, M3, or M4 chips as well as the more powerful creations. (Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future) I asked Pawel Sasko, Associate Game Director of CD Projekt Red, about what performance might look like on other Macs with different levels of performance from various chips, like even a MacBook Air. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. He first explained that Cyberpunk 2077 is running on CDPR’s proprietary Red Engine Four, which is designed to be scalable. “It's trying to use everything that given platform provides,” Sasko explained and called out that the title is available on a variety of devices already, including the Nintendo Switch 2 ahead of its release on the Mac. "Red engine is basically trying to check what hardware you have and squeeze out the max you can have,” he continued. Meaning that Cyberpunk 2077 will work to run and deliver the best performance based on the chip you have inside. Sasko couldn’t give a specific number yet based on the chip or a potential Mac SKU, but that’s because the game is still not finalized – CDPR is still working on it and polishing it. Sasko even shared that they’ll work on optimizing performance until the very end, and recently CDPR figured out how to optimize cloth, also known as what a character is wearing, to make it look better. Suffice to say, he shared that “We're trying to squeeze everything that given hardware gives us,” meaning it will run the best it possibly can on the Mac – which likely means that a more powerful chip, like an M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max, will deliver the best results. And the good news is that we’re likely only a few months away from one of the biggest AAA titles arriving on the Mac – the CDPR team wouldn’t give an exact time frame, but Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will arrive in 2025. I also got to see this demo of the title shortly after Apple unveiled macOS 26 Tahoe, which will introduce the Games app. Although CDPR hasn’t announced if it will be integrating with the new hub, it will work with the new ‘Game Overlay.’ This is a sidebar that can be brought to the top right-hand side of the screen, making it easy to enable game mode, adjust brightness or volume, and even switch controllers, as well as connect with friends. You can also opt to push your MacBook further with different energy modes. You might also like Microsoft makes fun of macOS Tahoe’s Liquid Glass redesign for ripping off Windows Vista – but Apple could have the last laugh macOS Tahoe 26 finally adds a much-needed feature that means I may never use Windows 11 again Live from WWDC 2025 – TechRadar podcast unpacks that massive iPadOS update and looks through Liquid Glass See more Computing News Social Links Navigation US Managing Editor News Jacob Krol is the US Managing Editor, News for TechRadar. He’s been writing about technology since he was 14 when he started his own tech blog. Since then Jacob has worked for a plethora of publications including CNN Underscored, TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal, Mashable, CNET, and CNBC among others. He specializes in covering companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google and going hands-on with mobile devices, smart home gadgets, TVs, and wearables. In his spare time, you can find Jacob listening to Bruce Springsteen, building a Lego set, or binge-watching the latest from Disney, Marvel, or Star Wars. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. MacBooks are now legitimate gaming machines – and the future looks promising Apple just leveled up Mac gaming with these two new features – and it's about time Apple's WWDC 2025 has a lot to offer - but forget Apple Intelligence, what about the games? WWDC 2025 might be a big deal for Apple, but it won't have the one thing I really want to see Mac gaming just leveled up – Steam finally runs natively on Apple silicon The 18 best Mac games to play in 2025 Latest in Macs Apple just leveled up Mac gaming with these two new features – and it's about time Apple's WWDC 2025 has a lot to offer - but forget Apple Intelligence, what about the games? 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