Best free Mac games

Brawlhalla is a fun blast of 2D arcade action that combines fighting skills with platforming jumping, and allows you to play with other people online or to play offline with a group of friends.

The game lets you play as a variety of hero characters, such as Thor with his powerful hammer, the speedy Thea with her magic boots, or Isiah who specialises in ranged weapons like his cannon and blaster. Combat is pretty straightforward, although the high-speed combat and platform jumping probably work better with a gamepad rather than mouse and keyboard. Each weapon has both ‘quick’ and ‘heavy’ attacks, and your characters can run left or right, dodge or jump past opponents. It’s one of those games that is easy to learn but hard to master, and timing is all-important when your character is fighting and leaping around the screen like a whirling dervish.

Fortunately, you can start with the game’s offline modes, which include some simple tutorials that introduce the basic fighting and platform jumping skills. Once you’ve got the hang of the basics you can try the training mode that lets you hone your skills against a series of computer-controlled opponents.

There’s even more variety when you’re ready to go online and play against other people. You can start with casual games and then progress to ranked competitions, and you can either play against a single opponent, or team up with another player for 2-v-2 matches. More experienced players can create their own ‘rooms’ where they set up matches with a variety of different playing modes, such as Horde, where you fight off waves of demon attackers, or Kung Foot where you use a football as a weapon. And if that sounds a bit intense, then the game also has a more relaxed Couch Party mode where you can play with friends at home.

Needless to say, there are in-app purchases available, with prices ranging from $8.99/£7.49 up to $99.99/£83.99. However, the game’s developers claim that these add-ons are only required to unlock new heroes and other cosmetic items, and that you don’t need to spend any money in order to enjoy the game and succeed in combat.

The original Counter-Strike was released way back in 2000, and is still available as a paid-for game. The team-based Global Offensive followed in 2012, and was also paid-for, although it switched to free-to-play at the end of 2018, partly as a response to the success of titles such as Fortnite.

Global Offensive has the same anti-terrorist theme as other games in the Counter-Strike series, but focuses on online multiplayer action with two teams competing to achieve their objective, such as defusing a bomb or rescuing a group of hostages. There are several different game modes available, including Casual and Deathmatch, which are the easiest for new players who are just getting started.

At the end of each match you’ll be rewarded with in-game currency that you can spend on upgrading your weapons and other gear, and as you improve you can work your way up to the more advanced Competitive mode. If you’re really good then you can pay for a Prime Status upgrade (£11.29/$14.99) that gives you better loot and teams you up with other top players. Alternatively, the couch potatoes among us can switch into Watch mode, and see how the professionals do it.

Defence Of The Ancients – aka DOTA – and its sequel, DOTA 2, were among the key games that started the MOBA genre of online strategy games a few years ago. Even today, Valve claims that DOTA 2 is the most played game on Steam. Unfortunately, the Mac version of DOTA 2 was, shall we say, a bit erratic, and it took quite a while to come up with a stable and reliable version.

The current version works perfectly well, though, and the age of the game means that you don’t need a super-powerful Mac to run it. However, DOTA 2 is quite a complex game, with dozens of hero characters that you can choose to play, each with their own weapons and powers that can affect your style of play. Fortunately, the current version does include an improved tutorial to help you get started, and if you stick with it then DOTA 2 will provide endless hours of challenging strategy action.

Eve Online has been available for Macs for quite some time, although the macOS version of the game didn’t always perform very well, and it hasn’t had a large following so far. However, some recent updates and a move to 64-bit software should help to make Eve Online a bit more Mac-friendly.

It’s a vast and remarkable game, giving you a galactic-scale interplanetary sandbox to play in, where you can explore strange new worlds, start trading, or get stuck in with some space-faring combat. The game starts in a fairly conventional manner, allowing you to choose from four different races, as well as a variety of trading, combat and other skills. And, of course, you’ll need to choose a suitable ship in order to head off into space and begin your adventures.

The in-game economy is vast, and you can spend your entire time simply exploring and trading, or join one of the many factions that are constantly vying for power. It’s not an easy game to learn, though – even with the in-game tutorial for beginners – so you can take out an optional subscription, or buy a starter pack to help you boost your skills and ease you into the game. The system requirements for the dazzling outer-space graphics are pretty high too, so check that your Mac can handle the game before signing up.

Along with World Of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV is one of the few MMORPGs still available for the Mac. The game’s launch was plagued by technical problems back in 2010 – and especially on the bug-ridden Mac version that was released in 2015 – but the developers at Square Enix kept went back to the drawing board and started again with a revamp called Final Fantasy XIV: A Real Reborn. The current version, now known as Final Fantasy XIV Online, has continued to improve over the years and now ranks alongside WoW as one of the most popular and successful MMO titles in the world.

Like WoW, Final Fantasy XIV does require a monthly subscription to play the full game, as well as additional purchases for the major expansion packs that have been released in recent years. However, it also provides a free trial mode that is even more generous than that of WoW, as it allows you to play your character all the way up to level 60 – with the maximum level being 80 – before you need to start paying for the subscription.

You’ll need that time to get into the game, as it’s not quite as straightforward and user-friendly as WoW. The free trial mode lets you choose from 14 different ‘jobs’, which are like the classes of other games, with options such as the Paladin, Ninja and White Mage, and you then set off on a quest to protect the kingdom of Eorzea from the forces of evil. It’s fairly conventional fantasy fare, but the combat system can be quite complex, so you’ll need a fair bit of patience at the start of the game as you learn how the various classes, skills and abilities work. But, if you can cope with the early stages of the game, then you may find yourself completely drawn into the world of Eorza. The game has a huge, friendly community and many players skip all the dungeons and quests and spend their time crafting and trading, or just dressing up in silly costumes.

Hearthstone is an online game where you collect cards. Sounds boring, but it’s got around 40 million players so put your preconceived ideas away.

You earn cards by playing daily quests, and then battle your cards in online matches against other gamers (where you can win rare cards). You can’t trade cards, you can only win them in battles (this is a good thing as it means there are no scams and fewer robots playing).

It’s easy to pick up, quick to fit into your daily life and has an amazing community of players. There are in-app purchases, but you can get by just playing the free game.

Marvel Snap was an instant hit when it was first launched last year, and it quickly established itself as one of the most popular free-to-play card games around. Strictly speaking, though, it’s not actually a Mac game at all, as it was originally designed for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad. But, of course, some of the latest iPads use the same M1 and M2 processors as the current Mac range, so the developers have released it on the Mac App Store as well (although not all iPad games are Mac-compatible, as it does still require a spot of tweaking to get iPad games to run properly on Macs that have Apple Silicon).

It’s not surprising that Marvel Snap was such a hit, as it’s a sugar-rush of instant digital gratification – especially if you’re a Marvel fan. The game doesn’t currently have a single-player mode, so all games are either played against random online opponents, or with friends in multiplayer mode. You play each game by using cards that represent different Marvel heroes and villains, each with their own individual powers. The cards have a lot of character too, which helps to really draw you into the game – the Punisher card sprays gunfire around the screen as you pick it up and move it across the screen, while Mr Fantastic’s stretchy arms shoot out from his card to apply a bonus to nearby cards.

Each game is split across three different battleground zones, with each zone having different bonuses. You win games by controlling two out of three zones, so much of the game’s strategy involves figuring out which cards and abilities work best in each zone. There’s not a lot of time to think, though, as the games are pretty quick. Each games lasts for just six turns so they’re over and done in just a few minutes.

Inevitably, there are in-app purchases galore, ranging from £2.99/$2.99 to a whopping £99.99/$99.99, so you’ll have to be careful not to get too carried away (especially if you’ve got a credit card linked to your AppleID). Thankfully, though, the icon for the game’s online store tends to just sit in a corner of the screen most of the time and doesn’t constantly hassle you to spend money the way that some card games do.

As a fan of the Diablo games for many years, I was disappointed to find that the long-awaited Diablo IV won’t be available for the Mac. However, Path Of Exile (PoE) provides a free dose of old-school dungeon-looting action that is very much in the Diablo tradition (and the PoE wiki even has a guide for ex-Diablo players who are switching games).

The game starts off in a fairly conventional manner, prompting you to choose your character class from selection of traditional fantasy types such as the magic-wielding Witch, the holy Templar, or the Ranger who specializes in archery skills. However, PoE’s skill system is very flexible, and you can change your combat skills at any time simply by collecting magical gems that slot into your weapons and provide new abilities. This gives you a lot of freedom to mix and match different weapons and skills and create a unique character that suits your own personal playing style.

Newcomers can start by playing a standard game, in which you find yourself washed up on a beach in the land of Wraeclast and then follow the game’s main storyline through a series of quests. But, to keep the game fresh, there are also ‘Crucible’ leagues that run every few months and introduce new challenges for you to master.

All of the main game modes are free to play, and while the game does sell a number of items and ‘supporters packs’, these tend to just provide cosmetic items or useful features such as additional storage space for all your magical loot. We have to point out that, though, that PoE is quite an old game – it was originally released for Windows PCs almost a decade ago, although the Mac version didn’t arrive until 2020. The graphics do look a little dated, tending to be rather murky at times, and the game’s enormous skill trees and complex statistics mean that you’ll have to spend a lot of time planning your character’s skills and abilities. But, of course, you can easily download the game for free and then play for a while to see if you enjoy its old-school role-playing charms.

With its many millions of active players, Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft feels like the de facto collectible card game today, but there are alternatives and Shadowverse is one of them, although it appears to have garnered a significant following in Japan before getting translated into English. In fact, many reviewers claim it scratches an itch that Hearthstone simply cannot.

On the surface, however, they seem very similar: you’ll take turns playing a creature or hero card on the board, and then they’ll battle it out, while the 400+ collectible cards offer a load of deck variety. It’s free-to-play, too, which means pumping in money can bring big advantages, but at least you can try it out and probably play quite a bit without spending.

Slight word of warning: World of Warcraft is genuinely addictive.

This online roleplaying game puts several players together and keeps them building up their characters. World of Warcraft is one of the greatest computer experiences ever made, and has legions of fans.

It’s free to play up until level 20, but you can buy a subscription that unlocks the remainder of the game. Most people play the subscription model so it’ll only be free until you get hooked and start wanting to play the extra levels.