It’s no secret that being a gamer as a Mac owner has been less than desirable through the decades, but as Apple continues to improve on its own chipsets in all of its devices, it’s very clear that this is changing rapidly.
With the release of Resident Evil 4 (remake), I got to put the new M3 Max 14-inch MacBook Pro as well as the iPhone 15 Pro through their paces whilst playing the game, and it’s more than shown me that AAA gaming is alive and well on Apple devices.
This is the full release of Resident Evil 4 including the Seperate Ways DLC as well as the Mercenaries mode and using MetalFX upscaling with the graphics mode set to quality, the game was able to run at an almost 3k resolution at 60FPS without dropping too many frames on the M3 Max chipset. Uncapping the framerate and turning MetalFX to performance allowed it to go near the 100s, which is really impressive.
This was played the new Game Mode in MacOS Sonoma which automatically dedicates all resources from your MacBook Pro to running the game, allowing for better performance and again just solidifies how dedicated Apple has become to gaming in the last year or so. You’re easily to able to connect a DualSense controller, Xbox controller or Nintendo Switch Pro controller to play as well.
@shannongrixti Resident Evil 4 runs super impressively on the iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pro #ResidentEvil4 #ResidentEvil4iPhone #iPhone15Pro #m3maxmacbookpro #Apple #IPhone #MacBook #ResidentEvil
The game also runs on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max with the A17 Pro chip and utilises Apple’s fantastic cross-save technology, so that you can go back and forth between playing on your Mac and the iPhone 15 Pro (which I played using a Backbone controller).
On the iPhone 15 Pro, there was a noticeable drop in graphics and definitely more framerate stutters, but it was still far ahead of handheld gaming that we’ve seen on the likes of Nintendo Switch. It was more than playable as a portable experience, and this can only get better as time goes on.
Really though, Resident Evil 4 is just the beginning with the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, Stray, Lies of P, Resident Evil Village and No Man’s Sky all dropping on Mac in recent months with the likes of Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage still to come.
We haven’t even spoken about Apple Arcade which has delivered banger after banger this year. Not unlike Xbox Game Pass, it provides not only fantastic value for gamers, but also a bunch of exclusive games.
The likes of Sonic Dream Team and Hello Kitty Island Adventure, just to name a few that aren’t available elsewhere, but there’s loads of other familiar names such as Disney Dreamlight Valley, NBA 2K24, TMNT and Football Manager.
I really do believe that Apple’s place in the gaming realm is only just beginning, and I’m really excited to see how the company continues to take advantage of Apple Silicon to continue bringing these AAA gaming experiences to the masses in future.
