Death Stranding (Mac)

Death Stranding on Mac

Death Stranding isn’t available on Mac, but you can still play the game on a Mac machine with the help of different workaround methods. Cloud gaming, Windows emulation, and installing Windows are all methods that can help you play Death Stranding on Mac.

Death Stranding is a 2019 sci-fi action-adventure game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony. Initially, the game was only made available for PS4. Subsequently, it received a Windows version in 2020 and a PS5 version in 2021. Currently, the game doesn’t have a version for macOS and probably never will. This, however, isn’t a reason to think that you absolutely cannot play Death Stranding on a Mac machine. There are, in fact, several methods you could use for that. Before we get to them, however, let us tell you a bit more about the game itself, so you can decide ahead of time if it’s something you’d be willing to try out on your Mac.

Premise and setting

Death Stranding is set in the remnants of the US, now called the UCA (United Cities of America), in the aftermath of a cataclysmic event called the Death Stranding. The Death Stranding was caused by the Beach Things – deadly invisible creatures that cover the land in a type of rain called Timefall that causes everything it touches to rapidly age and, thus, deteriorate. The main character is a freelance courier who is part of an organization called BRIDGES that delivers goods between the few surviving human colonies that form the UCA. Understandably, a large portion of the game’s story and the plot revolves around reaching different places to make a delivery of different items. Of course, there are twists and turns as the game’s plot progresses, but, to avoid spoilers, we won’t get into those.

As for the setting itself, the open world of Death Stranding is vast and wide, and you’d need to be prepared to roam it for hours on end, braving the challenges that lay along the way. At times, it may even feel like the world is a bit too big and, therefore, empty, but in a game where the terrain itself can prove to be a major challenge, it seems fitting that you don’t get enemy encounters every five minutes. Besides, this is a very beautiful game, and you can get a lot of enjoyment from simply walking around and taking in the scenery.

What type of game is Death Stranding?

As mentioned, Death Stranding is most commonly labeled as an action-adventure game, but this label could be quite misleading. Though the game does include some action, this is not the main focus here. In fact, rather than fighting off enemies, you’d be spending the majority of this game traversing the vast open world of Death Stranding with the sole goal of delivering packages to different locations. Yes, Death Stranding is basically a delivery/walking simulator game. Saying it like this, however, makes the game sound boring and tedious. In truth, there’s a lot more to it – yes, a large portion of the game is indeed centered around going from place A to place B, but it’s what happens in between that matters the most. The open world of Death Stranding is an inhospitable and harsh place, where the simple act of reaching a certain destination could be a major challenge. Rugged terrain, environmental hazards, unfavorable weather conditions, and, of course, different types of enemies are all obstacles laid on your path to the desired destination. On top of it all, there’s a lot of mechanical depth to the gameplay of Death Stranding – you need to take into account factors such as your character’s stamina, the number of supplies you have at your disposal, the incline and decline of the terrain you are traversing, and even the angle at which the player character’s body is leaning. There’s a lot to learn gameplay-wise in Death Stranding which is why the first several hours of gameplay can come off as dull and tedious. It takes some patience to get into the game, but once you get a better understanding of all the things you’d need to know in order to progress, you start to find better tools, acquire improved equipment, and reach new and more interesting areas that significantly enhance the enjoyment factor of the game.

To tame a land

Of course, Death Stranding isn’t simply a hiking/delivery simulator – let’s not forget there’s also the sci-fi element of the game to spice things up. One of the coolest elements of the gameplay is using blueprints that you find on your adventures to create different items with the help of devices called Portable Chiral Constructors (PPCs). These devices work like souped-up sci-fi 3D printers and allow you to craft anything from simple items such as ropes and ladders to large structures such as bridges and even roads. On a related note, an interesting decision by the game’s developers is to make the world of Death Stranding shared between players. What this means is, though this is still a single-player game, useful changes you make to the terrain and the infrastructure in Death Stranding as well as items you may leave behind can later be found and used by other players. While some may see this feature as controversial, it helps make the gameplay world feel lived in and also often provides the player with help in time of need that doesn’t come from the game itself but from other players, albeit indirectly.

Another interesting gameplay feature is a special enemy type known as Beach Things (BTs), which are invisible and are surrounded by a harmful rain-like effect called Timefall. If the Timefall rain touches the player’s character, it would cause rapid deterioration of their gear and health as the Timefall’s main effect is to speed up the time of anything it falls onto. To help keep away from BTs, the player’s character is equipped with a special sensor that can be used to scan one’s surroundings for BTs. If the sensor is pointed toward an invisible BT, it starts making a noise and so the player knows to avoid that particular area.

Mediocre combat

The last thing we want to mention about the gameplay is its combat. It’s apparent that this aspect of the gameplay wasn’t a priority during development – though once you start getting better gear, tools, and weapons, the combat becomes more serviceable, early into the game, it’s mostly a chore that you’d likely prefer to avoid rather than something interesting to be looking forward to. Luckily, combat encounters are few and far in between, and you also often have the option to avoid them.

Conclusion

Overall, Death Stranding can be confusing and maybe a bit dull at the start of the game, so it’s definitely not for everyone. However, once you start to better understand its ins and outs, you’d begin to appreciate the mechanical depth of its gameplay and the intricacies o its unusual story, which is usually the time at which the game tends to become a lot more interesting engaging, and enjoyable.

Can you play Death Stranding on Mac?

You can Play Death Stranding on Mac even though the game doesn’t have a macOS version, but you’d need to use a workaround method. You can either use cloud gaming to play Death Stranding on Mac or emulate/install Windows and then download the game.

It is often tricky to play games on Mac because the majority of modern gaming titles aren’t supported for macOS. This, however, doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to run an unsupported game on a Mac. You’d just need to resort to some workarounds. By far, the easiest method of playing any game on a Mac is to use a cloud gaming service – as long as the game you want is available in the service you’ve chosen to use and as long as you have good Internet and a subscription to that service, you’d be able to play the desired game, including Death Stranding.

The other option is to install or emulate Windows on your Mac, which will allow you to play the game natively, but this method requires you to spend significantly more time and effort in order to set everything up.

We will give you examples of these two methods down below, and we will show you how to use them, so you can give them a try and, with their help, play Death Stranding on your Mac.

How to play Death Stranding on Mac

To play Death Stranding on Mac, we recommend using a game streaming service – Boosteroid and GeForce Now are two such services that offer the game. The other way to play Death Stranding on Mac is by first installing Windows on the machine.

The advantage of the cloud gaming/game streaming method is that it doesn’t require your Mac to be particularly powerful and to meet the requirements of the game. Also, it’s much easier to set up a cloud gaming subscription than it is to install or emulate Windows on your Mac. That is why this is the method of playing Death Stranding we’d recommend. That said, if you have a powerful Mac with lots of RAM and CPU cores, and you are willing to spend the time to get Windows installed/emulated on it, you can also try this option. Performance-wise, it’s difficult to definitively say which method is better, as performance with either of them depends on a lot of variables such as Internet connection (for cloud gaming) and hardware specs of the Mac (for playing the game natively, through Windows).

Below, we will first give you instructions on how to use Boosteroid and GeForce Now – two popular game streaming services – to play Death Stranding on your Mac. After that, we will also show you how to get Windows installed and emulated on your Mac to play the game natively.

One last thing before you try any of the methods – know that you must already own Death Stranding on Epic Games Store or on Steam in order to be able to play it regardless of which method you choose to use.

Death Stranding Set-Up Methods

Methods	Advantage	Disadvantage
Cloud Gaming	– No set-up required – Register and Play – Access to a Library of over 70 top-rated free Games – Smooth performance – Compatible with M1 and Intel Macs	– Monthly Fee – Requires Decent Internet Connection – No Free Trial
BootCamp	– Free to use any time – Windows 10 Environment	– Painful Setup – Mediocre Performance – Only Compatible with Intel Macs
Parallels Virtual Machine	– Easy Set-up – Adequate Performance – Play almost any PC game – Windows 11 environment – Compatible with M1 and Intel Macs – 14-day free trial	– Yearly Fee

To play Elden Ring on Mac:

First, you will need to purchase the game. Limited time offer on CD.Keys.com for a discount – 28 % Death Stranding for $ 28.59

Now you will need to register for Boosteroid. This allows you to add Death Stranding to their Cloud Gaming Library. Once uploaded you can seamlessly play the game from your Mac, TV, or Mobile Device.

When Registered you will have additional access to more games for free. Pricing varies depending on the subscription plan.

Play Death Stranding with Booosteroid

Note 1: Before you start, note that playing games with Boosteroid happens directly through the browser, and the recommended browsers to use for that are Chrome and Opera. Safari, Firefox, and other popular browsers typically work as well, but the recommended two are the ones that should give you the best performance.

1. Enter the Boosteroid.com site, and use your email to create a new account.
   
2. Next, sign in to Boosteroid and click on your account name in the top right.
3. Click on Subscribe, then select a subscription option, and complete the subscription by providing the required details for the payment method you’ve chosen.
   
   
4. Now click the search icon at the top and type in the search bar Death Stranding.
   
5. Click on the game when the search finds it and then, on the Death Stranding page, click Play.
   
6. Click OK, let’s go, wait for the game to load, and then provide your login details for Steam to start playing.
   
7. For best experience, set your browser to its full screen mode and hide its toolbar.

Play Death Stranding with GeForce Now

1. Go to the GeForce Now site, click Join Now, and register for the service with your email.
2. Open the GeForce Now account page, go to the Downloads section, download the GeForce Now for Mac, and install it.
3. Launch the app, log in, search for Death Stranding, and click on the game.
4. Select a version of the game you want to play – Steam or Epic Games Store – depending on where you’ve bought the game and then click Play.
5. Select Continue to confirm that you agree to connect to your Steam/Epic Games account, then wait for the loading to complete, and enter your account details for the specified game store to log in. The game will now start in the GeForce Now app, and you can begin playing as if Death Stranding is installed on the computer.

For more details on how to set up and use GeForce Now, you can also visit our separate GeForce Now guide (LINK) article.

How to download Death Stranding on Mac

To download Death Stranding on Mac, Windows must first be installed or emulated via a virtual machine. Boot Camp Assistant can be used to install Windows and Parallels can be used to emulate it, thus allowing you to download Death Stranding on your Mac.

There are some pretty notable differences between installing and emulating Windows both in the setting up process and in the performance you’d get while gaming. Generally, Intel Mac users are recommended to use the Boot Camp Assistant method, whereas owners of M1 Macs should emulate Windows using the Parallels virtualization software if they want to download and play Death Stranding. Here are the main steps for each method:

Installing Windows via Boot Camp Assistant

1. First, you need a Windows 10 ISO file – you can download it for free from Microsoft’s site.
2. Next launch the Boot Camp Assistant app found in the Utilities folder and load in it the ISO file.
3. After that, make sure that both partitions are given enough space and click Continue – your Mac will restart.
4. When the Mac restarts, follow the pre-installation prompts and then launch the Windows 10 installation.
5. After the OS is installed, go through the customization settings and when Windows 10 loads, install the necessary Apple drivers for Windows using the Boot Camp window that should be on your screen.
6. Finally, download the Steam or Epic Games Store client and use it to download and install Death Stranding on your Mac.

Click for our detailed Boot Camp guide (LINK)

Emulating Windows via Parallels

1. Visit Parallels.com to download and install the Parallels app.
2. Install Parallels on your computer by running the .dmg file and following the directions on the screen.
3. Once Parallels has been installed, open it and select the “Install Windows” option to begin the process of creating a Windows VM.
4. Create a Parallels profile or sign in to the virtual machine using one of the other available sign-up options.
5. Once you enter the VM, download the Steam or the Epic Games client and use it to install the game on the virtual machine.

If you need more in-depth steps for Parallels with screenshots, check out our Full Parallels Guide.

Death Stranding on Mac M1

Death Stranding on Mac M1 can be played with the help of a game streaming service or by creating a virtual machine for Windows 11 in which you can download the game. You cannot play Death Stranding on Mac M1 using Boot Camp Assistant.

One of the many differences between Intel and M1-based Macs is that the latter cannot get Windows 10 installed on them using the Boot Camp Assistant app. That is why, if you are a Mac M1 user and want to download Death Stranding on your computer, your only way to do it would be by emulating Windows with the help of virtualization software such as Parallels. While this won’t provide you with the smoothest possible gameplay experience, it should still yield adequate performance, especially if your Mac is equipped with the more powerful M1 Pro or M1 Max chip and has 16 GB or more unified memory.

Of course, the cloud gaming options are equally available for both types of Macs (Intel and M1) and it remains the easiest and quickest way to play Death Stranding on a Mac computer. Just make sure that your Internet connection is up to the task before you divide to get a subscription to a cloud gaming service.