Gaming Becomes More Important to Apple

At WWDC 2024, Apple announced not only a dozen new and old games for the Mac, but also the second iteration of the Game Porting Toolkit. This should simplify the process of bringing games into the Apple ecosystem, especially as Apple talks about a "unified gaming platform across iPhone, iPad and Mac".

Artificial Intelligence was, unsurprisingly, a dominant theme at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2024. The company introduced Apple Intelligence, a "personal intelligence system" based on generative models. It will be integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 Sequoia (Beta: launched; Release: autumn 2024), with Apple placing particular emphasis on privacy. Gaming was also addressed, especially on the Mac, although it was given little time compared to other aspects.

Looking back on the Mac release of Baldur's Gate 3 and Death Stranding: Director's Cut, the company said that they had created a "unified gaming platform across iPhone, iPad and Mac, spanning well over a hundred million devices". They mentioned the iPhone 15 Pro and any iPad with an M-series chip. With iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, they want to deliver more features for a gaming experience. Since the introduction of Game Porting Toolkit, more games have been brought into the Apple ecosystem, and this year's Game Porting Toolkit 2 should help developers bring more advanced games to the Mac, with improved Windows compatibility and shader debugging tools. Bringing Mac games to iPad and iPhone should be easier with Xcode support that allows developers to unify their game code and shaders across devices. At least that's how Apple describes it.

New games for Macs were revealed, including Dead Island 2 from Plaion, Control Ultimate Edition from Remedy (with ray tracing on M3 chips and above) and Frostpunk 2 from 11 bit Studios. Other titles mentioned included Palworld, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 7 biohazard, Sniper Elite 4, Riven, Wuthering Waves (with ray tracing on M3 chips and above), Valheim, World of Warcraft: The War Within, and RoboCop: Rogue City. MetalFX Upscaling is also being used as a software solution to accelerate performance and enhance visuals across the Mac line-up. Ubisoft, which recently released Assassin's Creed Mirage for iPhone and iPad, also attended WWDC 2024 and announced that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Assassin's Creed Shadows will be coming to Mac systems.

Marc-Alexis Côté (Vice President Executive Producer, Assassin's Creed at Ubisoft): "At Ubisoft, our mission is to enrich players' lives by creating original and memorable gaming experiences. We see a huge opportunity to share our passion for games to more players in the Apple ecosystem thanks to the unified gaming platform with tight integration of Metal and Apple silicon. Just last month, we announced that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is coming to Mac, and we unveiled that the next big chapter of Assassin's Creed is also coming to Mac on November 15 alongside PCs and consoles. We're so excited about this game and can't wait for you to experience it on Mac." It was also mentioned that the next generation of the Anvil engine would support the latest advances in Metal - as well as ray tracing. The publisher also confirmed that Assassin's Creed: Shadows will be coming to the iPad. The hardware requirements have not yet been revealed.

It remains to be seen how many game developers will port their products to Apple's ecosystem, as the first big wave of ports did not happen after the release of the Game Porting Toolkit v1. However, Apple is still trying to open up its ecosystem to game developers, and the creation of a unified gaming platform across iPhone, iPad and Mac is certainly commendable.

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