Surprisingly, there are actually quite a few FPS games available for Mac, so if you are eager to shoot up some bad guys on your Apple computer, we are sure this next list will have something for you. We’ve compiled all the best first-person shooter games that you can get from Steam and Epic Games Store and play on your Mac, and we’ll now tell you something about each of them in the next lines.
First, we’ll focus on the best Mac FPS games in general, and then we’ll give you a separate list, where we specifically focus on multiplayer shooters, which can be played on an Apple machine.
But what are the best FPS Games on Mac?
In our humble opinion, these are the six best FPS games you can play on Mac, that can be found on Steam and/or the Epic Games Store:
* This game doesn’t have a native macOS version, but can still be played on Mac through cloud gaming. We’ve included it to make the list more varied and show you an additional option for gaming on Mac.
Metro Exodus
Price: $29.99
How you can play it: Natively
Our full article on Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus, much like the other games from the Metro series, is a story-driven single-player FPS experience that, rather than encouraging you to run and gun away at your enemies demands that you take your time and slowly and carefully progress through its diverse levels. This is a very atmospheric and cinematic game that immerses you in its rich setting and requires that you stay alert and aware of your surroundings, lest you get surprise-attacked by an angry mutated animal or a hostile human NPC.
Unlike its predecessors, a lot of levels in Metro Exodus feature wide-open areas rather than always shoving the player into narrow underground corridors and rooms. However, through the creative use of ambient effects, dynamic lighting, and environment, the game still manages to keep you on edge and fuel your anxiety even when you are out in the open and should technically be able to see when a threat is coming long before it gets to you.
The only potential downside of the game is that its final act may come off as a bit anticlimactic – it doesn’t feature any big showdown where you fight an overpowered bad guy, which may be a bit disappointing to some players. Despite this, the game is still a great, atmospheric, and story-rich experience with some horror elements, and we highly recommend it to anyone looking for an immersive single-player game filled with thrills and tense moments but also flavored with well-placed emotional beats.
Borderlands 2
Price: $19.99
How you can play it: Natively
Borderlands 2 is a colorful and hectic PvE FPS with tons of different weapons, weapon upgrades, add-ons, and equipment that you can find in the game. It can be played in single-player, but the best way to experience it is in its multiplayer co-op mode where you and a maximum of three other players come face to face with a diverse selection of enemies that have varying attack patterns and weaknesses that require you to work as a team in order to successfully take down. Though on the surface, this may seem like a run and gun game, there’s a lot of tactical depth under the surface, and a lot of it comes from the four character classes that you can choose to play as. Each class has its unique abilities that come in handy in different situations and often only a coordinated team effort, where each character’s ability is used at the right time and in the right way, would be enough to defeat some of the stronger enemies. That said, you can still play through the game single-player or with only one or two more people – the game’s difficulty automatically adjusts to the number of players on a team.
To conclude, Borderlands 2 is tons of fun, especially if you have one or more friends that want to play it in co-op mode with you. On the other hand, if you are looking for a more single-player-oriented game, there are better options out there.
BioShock Remastered
Price: $19.99
How you can play it: Natively
BioShock Remastered, as the title implies, is a remastered version of the original BioShock single-player FPS game, which, over the years, has reached the status of a cult classic among the fans of the single-player FPS genre. If you are looking for online shooter mayhem, you should check out some of the other games that we have on our list, but if you are into story-rich, atmospheric, and highly-immersive single-player gaming experiences, especially from a first-person perspective, BioShock Remastered is a must-try. It is regarded as one of the FPS games that have the best stories and most immersive settings and is often put next to classics such as Half-Life 1 and 2, System Shock, Dead Space, and Deus Ex. In BioShock, you gain access to a variety of weapons and special powers that help you fight your way through a vast underwater city, as you slowly learn more about its past and uncover its mysterious secrets. Throughout the game, on many occasions, you are forced to make moral decisions and given the opportunity to customize the powers of your character, which gives the game some role-playing elements.
Overall, it is a great game that fans of this specific type of FPS should definitely try if they haven’t done that already.
Dying Light
Price: $29.99
How you can play it: Natively
Dying Light is another story-driven FPS experience, but here you can choose between engaging in its single-player mode or play the game with your friends in the online co-op mode. Dying Light combines several elements from other popular gaming genres to create something that’s both unique, and familiar. The setting of the game is a city infested with zombie-like creatures that you can fight choose to fight or, preferably, run away from. The twist here is that the game employs parkour-style character movement. In other words, you can use your character’s parkour skills to evade and escape the zombies that are chasing you, and, in some cases, you can even use those skills offensively. You do, of course, get the option to simply shoot or whack away at the incoming zombies, However, more often than not, you’d find it much smarter and more efficient to climb over a wall or jump to a neighboring rooftop to save your skin rather than engage face to face with a horde of enraged zombies. This mix between games like Left 4 Dead and Mirror’s Edge lends Dying Light a unique, yet appropriate dynamic and makes the game very enjoyable and engaging, which is why we’d recommend it to anyone looking for some tense and fast-paced unconventional FPS with zombies.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Price: $29.99 (Steam)
How you can play it: Natively
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is yet another immersive story-driven single-player FPS. Like the previous games from the Deus Ex series, Mankind Divided incorporates RPG elements, such as various ways to upgrade and enhance your character. Similarly to its predecessors, Deus Ex features a distinct sci-fi setting that the game makes great use of. The player’s character has access to a wide selection of hi-tech abilities and since the game’s environments are so densely-populated with different types of technology, you are able to hack into almost anything and use it to your advantage. Other abilities that you have allow you to quickly move from one place to another, gain stealth, reach inaccessible locations, and more. The great thing about this type of gameplay is that there is always more than one way to complete a given objective, which encourages player creativity and paying attention to every detail.
Through stealth and completing objectives without getting noticed is a major part of the game, there’s also the compulsory gunplay, or else this wouldn’t be a real FPS. While stealth is most certainly encouraged in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, this absolutely doesn’t take anything away from its combat sequences, in which you do not feel overpowered, but are given lots of control and, if you are good enough, you may even manage to deescalate the situation.
The only thing that may count as a downside of Mankind Divided is its somewhat restrained story. Not that it’s bad or unenjoyable, but, compared to other Deus Ex games, it feels smaller in scale and not as impactful. That said, it’s still a solid and immersive experience, that’s only heightened by the slick and thrilling gameplay.
Dying Light 2
Price: $59.99 (Steam)
How you can play it: Cloud gaming (Boosteroid; GeForce Now)
Our full article on Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 is the sequel to Dying Light, and it offers a lot of the same thrills as the first game, only here the parkour and zombie-chasing sequences have been ramped up to eleven. If you liked running through a zombie-infested city using slick parkour moves in the first game, there’s a lot more of that in the sequel. Furthermore, now even the city in which the game is set (it’s a different city from the first game) feels like the player’s parkour playground (as it should). High buildings close to one another or connected via zip-lines allow for escaping the hordes of zombies even when it all seems lost.
There are, of course, a number of differences from the first game. The whole setting is, in fact, different. The storyline takes place a lot of years into the future, after the first game, and humanity seems to have gone back to a kind of dark age. Technology is scarce and modern weapons are a rarity, meaning that you’d need to rely more on melee weapons and your parkour skills to survive. It’s truly a unique setting that helps distinguish the sequel from the original and gives it its own character and style.
Both Dying Light games are great, so we recommend them both. However, the sequel is not available for macOS, so you’d need to use a streaming service to play it on your Mac computer. The service we’d recommend using to play Dying Light 2 on Mac is Boosteroid.
Multiplayer Shooting Games for Mac
* The marked games aren’t available for macOS but can be played on a Mac through cloud gaming. We’ve included them to add variety to this list and also introduce you to this alternative method of playing games on a Mac.
CS:GO
Price: Free to play
How you can play it: Natively
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a well-known tactical FPS game in which two teams – terrorists and counterterrorists – fight one another while also trying to complete a specific objective such as detonating/defusing a bomb or holding/evacuating a group of NPC hostages. The core of the Counter-Strike formula that dates all the way back to 2002 remains mostly unchanged in CS:GO, giving it an old-school feel, compared to more modern shooters. In CS:GO, all player characters are virtually the same, with the only difference being their appearance. Everyone has the same amount of max hit points, max armor points, movement speed, accuracy, reload speed, etc., which is one of the main differences between CS:GO and the games from the hero-shooter genre that seems to be more popular nowadays.
However, despite using an older formula and having been released nearly 10 years ago, CS:GO retains its popularity and benefits from full support for macOS. It is still one of the most played FPS games and is also one of the bigger e-sports. Its simplistic premise and leveled playfield may not provide the same amount of spectacle as more modern shooters, but the game makes up for it with very fast-paced and tense matches as well as balanced, fair, and highly-polished gameplay – the result of two decades of refining the initial Counter-Strike formula.
Fortnite
Price: Free to play
How to play it: Cloud gaming (Boosteroid; Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now)
Fortnite is a battle royale game developed by Epic Games that has become a cultural phenomenon since its release in 2017. With over 350 million registered players and a massive esports scene, Fortnite has taken the gaming world by storm.
In Fortnite, players compete against each other on an island where they must scavenge for weapons, build structures, and eliminate opponents in a last-man-standing format. What sets Fortnite apart from other battle royale games is its unique building mechanic, which allows players to construct walls, stairs, and other structures to gain an advantage in combat.
The game has a cartoonish aesthetic with colorful characters and landscapes, but don’t let its appearance fool you – Fortnite is a challenging and fast-paced game that requires strategy, quick reflexes, and teamwork. The game is updated regularly with new weapons, challenges, and skins to keep players engaged and excited.
One of the game’s strengths is its accessibility – it’s available on almost every platform, from PC to mobile, and is free to play. However, the game’s popularity has also led to some negative aspects, such as toxic behavior from some players and a heavy focus on microtransactions.
Overall, Fortnite is an impressive and engaging game that has become a cultural touchstone for gamers around the world. Its unique building mechanic, colorful graphics, and regular updates make it a game that’s hard to put down. Whether you’re a seasoned player or a newcomer to the battle royale genre, Fortnite is definitely worth a try.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Price: $59.99 (Steam)
How you can play it: Natively
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is one of the most popular games from the famous Call of Duty Series, offering both an engaging campaign mode with a co-op option as well as an exciting and fast-paced multiplayer, where you can play as a number of different characters, each with their unique abilities, skills, and traits, much like the hero-shooter games such as Apex Legends and Valorant.
A cool mechanic in Black Ops 3 is the mind-control powers that you have access to and that you can use to attack or even control enemies. This adds a sci-fi flavor to the game and helps diversify the gameplay in campaign mode. However, the actual campaign is rather short and, though its story is interesting, it won’t be anything that you haven’t seen before.
As for the multiplayer, it’s as competitive as ever and the diverse cast of characters, each with their specific role in a team, adds another layer of strategy and tactics to make each match even more engaging and exhilarating.
Last but not least, the zombie mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is one of the best parts of the game. It may feel like a totally different game, as the sci-fi setting is replaced by a 60s noir atmosphere, yet it’s a strangely fitting setting for a zombie apocalypse Also, the cool cast of scallywag characters and their amusing interactions are a treat to behold and experience as you are trying to survive another wave of incoming zombies.
Tannenberg
Price: $19.99
How you can play it: Natively
Tannenberg is an indie multiplayer PvP first-person shooter game set during World War I, that puts you in the shoes of a regular soldier fighting in the muddy trenches. The game is a sequel to Verdun – another multiplayer FPS about World War I and as such it shares a lot of similarities with the latter.
A notable highlight of the game is that its devs have paid serious attention to historical accuracy, providing accurate depictions of weapons, equipment, uniforms, and environments from the specific period. In it, you can play as Austro-Hungarians, Germans, Russians, and more, with each faction having different weapons and gear.
The gameplay in Tannenberg can be a lot of fun, but it may take some getting used to mainly because the game tends to be very punishing when you make a mistake. For example, one-shot kills are very common, so running out of cover will more often than not result in a respawn. Also, coordination and teamwork are key to success, which can make it difficult to win if you end up in a team of people who are unwilling to cooperate.
Another possible downside is that the game doesn’t have a very high player count, so it can at times be difficult to get matched with other players. However, if you have a buddy or two to join you while you play, Tannenberg can be a very immersive and compelling experience, especially if you care about historical accuracy and like games about World War I.
Apex Legends
Price: Free to play
How you can play it: Cloud gaming (Boosteroid; GeForce Now)
Our full article on Apex Legends
Apex Legends is a free-to-play multiplayer hero shooter game that uses the well-known Battle Royale formula, found in so many games today. It is, however, one of the best games Battle Royale games at the moment. Apex Legends offers a colorful cast of unique and interesting characters with cool abilities that do not feel overpowered, and it also has a nice selection of large maps with creative, futuristic, sci-fi designs. Personally, my favorite thing about this game is how rich and inspired its maps look and feel – there’s hardly a place on any of the maps that are wasted and that doesn’t have something going for it, which makes even the earliest stages of the game, when the players are usually far apart from one another, fun, as you go around, exploring the map for weapons, upgrades, gear, and ammunition.
If you have played other Battle Royale games in the past, you should feel right at home with Apex Legends, on the other hand, if this is your first time trying out a game of this type, you should be able to quickly get a general idea of how to play the game. However, to truly get good at Apex Legends, you’d need to pay attention to the specifics of each weapon, character, map specifics, and even the variety of movement patterns and how they interact with the terrain you’re currently on.
All in all, Apex Legends is a game that we can recommend, especially since it’s totally free to play. If you are interested in giving it a try on your Mac, you can play Apex Legends on it using Boosteroid or GeForce Now.
Overwatch 2
Price: Free (Blizzard)
How you can play it: Cloud Gaming (Boosteroid)
The sequel (and replacement) to Blizzard’s highly-popular multiplayer hero-shooter, Overwatch, feels and plays a lot like the original game. It brings back the fast-paced battles where each player chooses a different character and can switch to another character in-between rounds. The focus is once again placed on PvP matches, but Overwatch 2 will also gradually implement cooperative PvE content, with story-based missions. Apparently, Blizzard’s goal with the sequel is to put more focus on the game’s story and to expand the lore of its world.
Other noteworthy changes made to Overwatch 2 are the addition of three new heroes (with all the original ones also making a return), the addition of six new PvP maps, and the reduction of team size from six to five players.
However, the most notable of the changes is that Overwatch 2 is a free-to-play game unlike the subscription-based model of its predecessor. This means you can simply go to Blizzard’s site, register there, and then you’ll be able to play the game. Sadly, it’s not supported for macOS, but as we already said, there’s still a way to play it on a Mac with the help of cloud gaming.
Left 4 Dead 2
Price: $9.99 (Steam)
How you can play it: Cloud gaming (Boosteroid; GeForce Now)
Left 4 Dead 2 is another co-op FPS with zombies, but this time it’s a more straightforward game, where your character doesn’t have any advanced parkour skills or special abilities that would allow them to escape the onslaught of infected. Instead, you’d need to rely on any weapons that you can find and on the three other people in your squad in order to survive. Even though Left 4 Dead 2 is over a decade old, to this day it remains one of the best zombie FPS games of all time with its extreme attention to detail, intuitive and easy to pick up gameplay, and advanced zombie horde AI (called “The Director”) that makes each play through unique and adapts seamlessly to how each team of survivors is playing the game.
We thought about putting the newer Back 4 Blood game (a spiritual sequel to Left 4 Dead) in this list, but even though Left 4 Dead 2 is a much older game, it’s still times better and features significantly more advanced mechanics, AI, atmosphere, and characters which is why it’s the one we’d recommend.
Unfortunately, though the game used to have a Mac version, it cannot run natively on Macs that have macOS Catalina or higher installed. However, you can still play the game on your Mac even if you have Catalina, Big Sur, or Monterey with the help of Boosteroid and GeForce Now.
Team Fortress 2
Price: Free to play
How you can play it: Cloud gaming (Boosteroid; GeForce Now)
Our full article on Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is another beloved FPS game by Valve that embraces the hero-shooter formula and is probably the main reason this specific FPS genre has become so popular over the years. Even though Team Fortress 2 is almost 15 years old (released in 2007), to this day it continues to have a very large player base and community. The game has the status of a cult-classic by now and if you are someone who enjoys games like Overwatch, Valorant, or Apex Legends, you should absolutely try Team Fortress 2 – the game that started it all.
Despite its age and despite there are now many other games that more or less try to do the same, Team Fortress 2 is still relevant today and a lot of this is due to the game’s distinct art style, its cast of ludicrous characters, and balanced gameplay. By far, the best part of the game are its iconic characters and their interactions on the battlefield – every character has their own distinct personality that gets perfectly reflected in their unique abilities and gameplay style, yet all of them are equally silly yet oftentimes relatable.
For users who haven’t played any hero shooters before (or even ones who have), it may be a bit difficult getting into Team Fortress 2, due to the variety of character classes. At first, it can be difficult to learn how to properly play with and against each class. However, the Team Fortress 2 community is actually surprisingly friendly for the most part, which should ease the process of getting better at the game when you are first starting off.
Sadly, though the game used to be supported for macOS, it no longer has an updated Mac version. However, you can still play it on Mac using the Boosteroid and GeForce Now cloud gaming services.
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