Mac Source Ports

Developer: Midway Games
Release Date: November 16, 1995

In hindsight, one of the ironies of DOOM, famous today for running on everything, is that the consoles of the era couldn't run it well, usually in the form of the game having to make compromises on quality or content in order to work. The version for the origina PlayStation was no different, though at the time it was the best attempt yet.

Williams Entertainment (now Midway Games) did a good job making it run on Sony's console, and for bonus points it incorporated a custom campaign featuring levels from both DOOM and DOOM II.

Similar to the BurgerDoom project, PsyDoom is not an attempt to simulate the PSX version, it actually uses the disc image for the PSX version of the game. You can choose to either run the PSX version of the levels with modern quality of life improvements or you can have it recreate the experience of running in a period-accurate resolution and framerate.

Developer: id Software
Release Date: December 2, 1999
Source Code Release Date: August 9, 2005

Quake III Arena is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series to focus on multiplayer. The ioquake3 source port has been maintained since the original source code release in 2005, featuring a Universal 2 app that supports Intel 64-bit and Apple Silicon as well as a Universal 1 app that can support Intel and PowerPC Macs going back to Mac OS X 10.3

  Buy Quake III: Arena on GOG.com

  Buy Quake III: Arena on the Humble Store

Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: November 24, 1998

First there was Heretic, then there was Hexen, then there was Hexen II, and finally... Heretic II.

Continuing the trend of oddly named game sequels, Heretic II is the only one of the four not to later go open source, but someone was able to finagle a source port of it anyway, fusing the Quake II engine with the game code for Heretic II (similar to what Xash is doing). After some further efforts to make it build cross-platform we are able to offer a Universal 2 build here.

Developer: Troika Games
Release Date: August 21, 2001

Troika Games was one of those legendary developers, not only because of the pedigree of the founders but also because they didn't last very long and their games got the majority of their appreciation long after the fact. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is sort of like Fallout and sort of like Baldur's Gate, but rather than be in a post-apocalyptic or fantasy setting, it takes place in a steampunk world which is a surprisingly uncommon theme in gaming.

Alexander Batalov, who did the outstanding reverse engineered source ports for Fallout and Fallout 2 is in the process of working his Community Edition magic on Arcanum. He's not finished with it, thus the Early Access label, but the game reportedly is playable from start to finish so I decided to offer a build of it here.

NOTE: at this time the port is not playing the intro video so you may want to watch it here to get the gist of what it's dropping you into.

  Buy Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura on GOG.com

Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: March 30, 2004

For a brief window it seemed as if the twitch arena shooter was going to go the way of the annual sports franchise, for better or worse. In that vein, Epic released the sequel to Unreal Tournament in 2003 as... Unreal Tournament 2003. This was then followed up in 2004 by Unreal Tournament 2004.

While content-wise, Unreal Tournament 2004 is a superset of Unreal Tournament 2003, the initial plans to make it cross-play with the matching maps from the previous entry did not survive technical changes. Neverheless, it was a popular entry with tons of content, maps, modes, and the DVD-ROM version contained a disc full of map editing and modding tutorials that may have produced innumerable game developers, cementing Unreal as a game engine licensing force. It was truly a golden era of gaming.

Unfortunately things didn't last - Epic's planned break from the yearly cadence eventually meant that what would have been Unreal Tournament 2007 became Unreal Tournament III, eschewing the annual concept, and a planned 2014 reboot got consumed by an unclear business plan and their decision to shift everything to Fortnite.

Still, the OldUnreal guys have done it again - and by that I mean they convinced Epic to let them work their magic on yet another Unreal-the-franchise title. This is a preview release, so I'm labeling it Early Access, but fire it up and experience what at least one gamer called "I had to check to make sure there wasn't an Xbox under my desk."

Developer: Jagex Limited
Release Date: January 4, 2001

Though probably not the oldest MMO still in existence, RuneScape is definitely one of the most popular. Employing a unique approach to game structuring, developer Jagex itrated on the original design resulting in the modern version of RuneScape (dubbed by some as RuneScape 3), while also maintaining - since 2013 - a separate, parallel version of the game from its circa 2007 incarnation under the title Old School RuneScape. And while Jagex maintains clients for the versions, it also allows other developers to develop clients as well such as this one: RuneLite, which is open source and offers a signed and notarized build for the Mac.

At this time RuneLite does not offer a Universal 2 app, so you will need to download the version that corresponds to your Mac. Apple Silicon users can run either build but performance is better with the Apple Silicon version.

Also note that Old School RuneScape is a free to play MMO, meaning that it must be online in order to play. In addition, some features may only be available to users with an optional paid subscription. Mac Source Ports does not benefit financially from any transactions in the game, we are only linking to this game in order to highlight examples of source ports with modern Mac support.

Developer: Quetoo Team
Release Date: May 22, 2026

So this is interesting, I just stumbled on this randomly a few weeks back right after it was released, although it was apparently in the works for twenty years.

Quetoo is an open source project that's a combination of id Tech engines and technologies, incorporating every graphics technique the source port communities are known for, and recreating some of the classic maps of the Quake series without actually using any of its data.

The result is a purely community focused freeware arena shooter that can even be edited with modern tools like Trenchboom.
Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Developer: id Software
Release Date: June 22, 1996
Source Code Release Date: December 21, 1999

Quake is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series, which added polygonal enemies, advanced geometry, and a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails. A fascinating example of grappling with technology changes in parallel to gameplay, it spawned entire industries of modders and mutiplayer gaming.

The vkQuake port was derived from the QuakeSpasm Spiked port and uses Vulkan on macOS by way of MoltenVK. In addition, vkQuake recently added support for the remastered version of Quake from Night Dive Studios.

And because I've had a few requests for it, we are now hosting a build of DarkPlaces as an alternative port.

If you want to experience what it was like to play Quake at laumch before the advent of GLQuake or hardware acceleration, we have added Chocolate Quake as an additional option.

  Buy Quake on GOG.com

  Buy Quake on the Humble Store

Developer: Joeveno
Release Date: September 17, 2025
Source Code Release Date: September 17, 2025

No, that's not a caps lock error, that's the name of the game. Just go with me on this one...

BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER 3 is a first-person shooter where you play as a drug dealer who attempted to perform a demonic ritual to resurrect your favorite deceased singer but accidentally opened a portal to Hell. And then it gets weird.

The game straddles the line between sincere homage to (or parody of) Brazilian mods and bootleg games, and a sincere attempt at indie game development. The result has been as an incredible fever dream you should play by Kotaku which both looks clearly made by newcomers and yet at the same time is way more competent and well crafted than you might expect. It not only feels like Quake, it uses the Quake engine (specifically building off of the QSS-M source port), an exanple of using open source to make new work.

It's like the game equivalent of an underground mixtape or an indie movie, where it has an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam because the target audience takes one look and thinks it's awesome.

The game is available on Steam, itch.io and, in what I have to think is a reaction to the recent Sony shenanigans, physical media.

Developer: Bullfrog Productions
Release Date: March 28, 1997

Famed Amiga developer Bullfrog released this second entry in the "Theme" series (following Theme Park) which allowed players to design and run a hospital. The name Theme Hospital may not make a ton of sense but the game was ridiculously popular. The CorsixTH project is one of the more thorough and well organized source port projects active today, and Mac Source Ports is handling the Mac build.

  Buy Theme Hospital on GOG.com