Is CS2 playable on Mac? Valve explains

CS2 is one of the most popular first-person shooters right now, but is it available on Mac?

The Counter-Strike series began its life as a mod for the Half-Life franchise. From there, the humble mod became a juggernaut of competitive esports, spawning multiple tournaments and even its own ecosystem of skins. Still, for all of its success, Counter-Strike has rarely left the confines of keyboard and mouse. However, during the Global Offensive era, Valve ported the game to a handful of consoles as well as PC’s biggest tabletop rival Mac. This covered all of its bases, but with the switch to the Source 2 engine, Valve has shuttered most of its support outside of Windows PCs.

Here’s whether or not CS2 fan can play on Mac and why Valve made its controversial decision.

Is CS2 available on Mac?

Valve discontinued Mac support with the release of CS2 in September 2023 and has not announced plans to support Apple’s platform.

“As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these represented less than one percent of active CSGO players,” said Valve in a now-deleted Steam post.

Moving forward, Valve will only support the game on 64-bit Windows and Linux machines. Many players criticized Valve’s decision, especially given the studio’s claims that the sequel is the next step for the franchise. Instead, many fans felt Valve took a step backward by cutting support.

Even so, the lack of a macOS port didn’t affect the majority of players who played on Windows. A legacy version of CSGO was playable for a few months before full support was discontinued in January 2024. Players on macOS who purchased the prime status upgrade were eligible for full refunds until December 2023.

However, determined Mac owners can still play the latest Counter-Strike, albeit in a janky way. Through the use of third-party apps, some players have managed to run the Windows 64 bit version of Counter-Strike 2 on macOS. However, the quality of the game varies greatly from machine to machine.

Without Valve’s official support, playing Counter-Strike 2 on macOS won’t be a very wholesome experience. Most players recommend just sucking it up and getting a machine capable of running Counter-Strike 2.