Once promising for Mac gamers, Call of Duty games suddenly stopped supporting macOS years ago. That finally changed today, with the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 on Mac.

As with all previous COD games on Mac, Aspyr Media was the team in charge of bringing Black Ops 3 to macOS. And to properly celebrate the launch, several games from the Call of Duty franchise are on sale on Steam, including Black Ops 3!

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 combines three unique game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies, delivering one of the most ambitious Call of Duty packages ever.

The Zombies Chronicles content expansion delivers 8 fully remastered classic Zombies maps from Call of Duty: World at War, Black Ops and Black Ops 2. That alone should give you hours of fun.

The reviews were not stellar but still good. Do keep in mind that people love to have COD games. That clearly explains why the game has been harshly reviewed by Steam users.

The last COD to support macOS was Modern Warfare 3, released for Mac back in 2014. We’re glad to see Activision’s partnership with Aspyr is still alive and well. With a little luck, COD games will once again be among the best FPS games on Mac, starting with Black Ops 3.

Some will complain about not getting the latest COD, but seeing how some of the top shooters, such as Overwatch or PUBG, are missing on MacOS, Black Ops 3 remains good news.

Everything you need to know about Black Ops 3 on Mac

Black Ops 3 for Mac supports absolutely all the content available for Windows-PC. It will be up to you to decide which package better suits you:

The Multiplayer Starter Pack: For gamers only interested in Multiplayer.

The Zombies Chronicles Edition: For gamers wanting the full base game and the Zombies Chronicles content expansion.

The Zombies Deluxe Edition: For gamers wanting the full package (the full base game, Season Pass & the Zombies Chronicles content expansion).

But the most important fact about Black Ops 3 is that it’s the first COD to be 64-bit compatible (and hence future-proof). Also, as confirmed by Elizabeth Howard, Aspyr’s VP of Publishing, it also supports Metal:

We’re thrilled to bring all of the amazing Black Ops III content to Mac supporting Metal.

That alone should ensure the best MacOS performance possible. More on that below.

Black Ops 3 Mac requirements: Can you run it?

These are the game’s official Mac requirements:

OS: 10.13 (High Sierra)

CPU: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5

RAM: 8 GB

Disk Space: 150 GB

Video Card: 2GB ATI M290X or better

Please do note that Intel and NVIDIA GPUs are not officially supported hardware.

We have started testing the game on a 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro, and as expected, this game is a little too demanding for a MacBook with integrated graphics:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)

Make no mistake, this was to be expected. In fact, Intel machines are not only below the official system requirements, they clearly identified as “not supported”.

That said, we thought some of you were wondering if by any chance it was possible… It is not.

Longer answer: The game is barely playable at 20.4 FPS. Notice how reducing the settings to Low didn’t change much:

Proper tests performed on supported machines will follow tomorrow.

Black Ops 3 Mac download

Black Ops 3 is for the moment only available on Steam. Other digital stores will probably offer it soon, but taking into account Steam currently has it on sale (-50%!), I wouldn’t think twice…