'Cyberpunk 2077' comes to the Mac July 17 — patient Apple gamers get support for every Apple Silicon chip, new Metal features, and Spatial Audio

Screenshots from Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition for Mac
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is finally landing on the Mac. The game will run on every Apple Silicon Mac using M1 through M4 and running macOS Sequoia 15.5.

Developer CD Projekt RED is taking advantage of a ton of Apple technologies, including MetalFX upscaling, Spatial Audio with head tracking when using AirPods, dynamic HDR optimized for Apple XDR displays, and support for the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. CD Projekt RED and Apple are also touting a version of AMD FSR upscaling and frame generation "optimized for Apple Silicon." The FSR frame generation works with either MetalFX upscaling or AMD FSR upscaling.

The game will feature new "For this Mac" graphics presets, which are optimized for each Apple Silicon Mac. Every piece of Mac hardware with at least 16GB of memory, no matter the chip, should be able to run the game with optimizations. The game should run on systems with 8GB of RAM and achieve 30 frames per second in much of the base game, though it's possible that Phantom Liberty will stress that little RAM, necessitating CD Projekt Red's recommended specs.

The Ultimate Edition, which includes the original Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty DLC, should see feature parity with other platforms, including cross-progression, as well as Patch 2.3 with a new Photo Mode. It will also feature the performance benchmark from the PC version.

CD Projekt Red has embraced Apple's version of tiled rendering, which breaks up the rendering into smaller chunks, and assigns each one to a GPU core. To do this, the developer added support for Apple's Metal API, and used the Metal C++ interface and shader converter to optimize for Apple Silicon GPUs.

When Metal 4 launches later this year, Metal FX Frame Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising are set to be integrated into the game. Similar to Nvidia's DLSS, AMD's FSR, and Intel's Xess Frame generation, Frame Interpolation "generates an intermediate frame for every two input frames to achieve higher and more stable frame rates." Paired with upscaling, the companies are promising 120 frames per second on Ultra settings using this form of frame generation, though it's unclear which resolutions are supported on which Macs. Denoising is set to allow for real-time path tracing, even on the game's toughest settings.

Screenshots from Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition for Mac

(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will be available on the Mac App Store, as well as Steam, GOG.com, and the Epic Games Store. If you already own the game on one of those third-party launchers, you should be able to play it on the Mac without purchasing it again.

This game is a strong pillar of Apple's push to turn the Mac — and its other devices — into a gaming platform. While Cyberpunk first launched on PCs and consoles in 2020 in a somewhat disastrous state, the game has since improved and become a fan favorite. It's almost five years late to the Mac, but it will be a flagship opportunity to showcase what a high-end PC game looks like when ported to the Mac using Apple's technologies, especially since some gamers won't have to buy it again.

Apple's other ports have included Control: Ultimate Edition, Stray, multiple Resident Evil and Assassin's Creed games, Palworld, Death Stranding: Director's Cut, and more. Assassin's Creed Shadows released simultaneously on the Mac alongside Windows PCs and consoles.

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Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net. You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01