MacBook Neo: it can work, but can it game?

It’s been more than a month since Apple’s most disruptive product in recent years, its unusually affordable MacBook Neo, was released to a personal computer market largely unprepared for it: people are still trying to get their heads around how macOS is able to perform so well on a laptop built around a mobile processor, let alone one that can be had for less than $600 or even $500. It’s clear that this laser-focused product is designed for simple, common tasks various target groups of users take on daily – but, if that’s the case, won’t some of these mainstream consumers be interested in playing some games on it too?

Yes, they probably will. So the MacBook Neo can indeed do some work, but… can it actually game?

Yours truly has been extensively testing Apple’s latest laptop since launch day, so he was obviously curious to find out the answer to that question too. As it turns out, yes, the MacBook Neo can game, but that does not necessarily mean that most consumers should go out there and get one for gaming. It’s an important distinction that needs to be explained, so let’s break everything down.

The best possible scenario: native Mac games

The case of the Mac as a gaming personal computer is unusual because there are three different types of games that can ran on any such Apple Silicon-based machine, including the Neo: (a) games specifically made for Mac, (b) games belonging to the greater Apple ecosystem and (c) PC games that run through a translation/emulation layer. As one would expect, the best-case scenario is the first, where game code is designed to run specifically on Apple hardware, without emulation layers or control scheme changes.

As one would – or should – also expect, the Neo is not exactly the most powerful Mac out there, being based on the A18 Pro processor of the iPhone 16 Pro. Plus, even before the Neo or even Apple Silicon chips, there were extremely few games developed as Mac-only. Having said that, there have been a lot of high-quality PC releases getting the full macOS treatment in recent years and the A18 Pro is one of Apple’s latest chips, so it natively supports advanced features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and dynamic caching. The result: an unexpectedly effective little machine that can run a decent range of modern AAA games at gaming console-like settings and frame rates – while costing less than said consoles right now.

Yours truly tried several macOS titles that support Apple’s Metal3 and MetalFX graphics libraries and this is exactly what he found out: anything between 30 to 45 FPS is achievable on the MacBook Neo, helped along with resolution upscaling and a mix of medium to high settings in titles such as Resident Evil Village, Death Stranding, Baldur’s Gate 3, Control and Lies of P. Indie titles fared even better, as Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong or Disco Elysium had no trouble staying close to or maintaining 60 FPS (the highest the Neo can display on its screen or an external screen anyway).

It’s true that those 8GB of system memory do limit what one can expect of more complicated games such as Cyberpunk 2077 – and that will obviously not change in the future- but mainstream macOS games like Minecraft, Roblox, Balatro, Stardew Valley or The Sims 4 run very, very well on the Neo, which is what anyone should be asking of a mass-market laptop like this one really. Despite it’s commercial success so far, it’s probably too early to say whether the MacBook Neo will help macOS get more Apple Silicon-optimized versions of high-profile console or PC games, but – in the here and now – yes, consumers can enjoy the vast majority of what’s already out there for the Mac on this $599 device. Not bad at all.

The next best thing: iPad and iPhone games

It may not be readily apparent, but there’s a Mac feature that’s unique to Apple’s computers and potentially interesting to mainstream gamers: direct, seamless compatibility with many, many iPad and iPhone games. It’s a perk of the Apple ecosystem as a whole and – while whether the same game will run on iPadOS, iOS and macOS is still very much a developer/publisher decision – it could prove surprisingly handy because many of the same people who are interested in buying a MacBook Neo may already own an iPad or iPhone, in which case it’s highly likely they play at least a handful of games on those.

In this particular scenario hardware performance is not the issue: most Apple Silicon-based Macs are as powerful or much more powerful than almost all iPads or iPhones, so they can comfortably run any mobile game. That goes for the MacBook Neo too, despite it being based on the A18 Pro chip. The issue is that not all iPadOS or iOS games are available on macOS (when one visits the Mac App Store he/she will find that many of the most popular mobile titles are not present) and that, of those, many iPad or iPhone games are not “wireless controller-aware” (meaning that the Neo itself can easily pair with a PlayStation or Xbox controller but that does not mean that each individual game recognizes that controller and “just works” with it).

Having said that, if developers do go the extra mile and optimize a mobile game to work well on Macs, it’s absolutely amazing. Among Us and Marvel Snap look and play beautifully on the Neo, as does The Art of Rally and Sky: Children of the Light. These are home console-level productions, so less demanding titles – such as Bloons TD 6, Subway Surfers City, Slay the Spire or Monument Valley – all run so great that they might as well be native macOS games. Nothing compares to the hugely wide selection of mobile games out there today and a decent number of those are available for the MacBook Neo. Not all, not all the best ones, but enough to consider this a truly worthy source of quality titles that complements the macOS-native games well.

Last but not least, there’s the Apple Arcade angle to consider. If one owns an iPhone or iPad and is already a monthly subscriber to Apple’s “all-you-can-play” service, then he/she has immediate access to a number of very good games for his/her new MacBook Neo as a nice free bonus. Again, not all mobile games present in the Apple Arcade library work with the company’s new affordable laptop, but a respectable number of high-quality ones do, such as NBA 2K26, Civilization VII, Dead Cells or Cult of the Lamb. This is an area where Apple could maybe work more closely with developers and publishers, as increasing the number of Apple Arcade games that run well on macOS could easily work as a an added-value bonus for the MacBook Neo.

The land of uncertainty: PC games through emulation

This is the most complicated scenario here, as the same source of content offering the greatest variety and depth is also the most uncertain it terms of both compatibility and performance. Mac computers have long been able to play PC games through what amounts to complex but transparent emulation, CrossOver being the preferable tool for the job (paid but worth it for extensive use) and Whisky the most popular one (it’s more involved to set up and configure but also free for everyone). So the MacBook Neo can indeed run thousands of Windows titles in this way… even if that does not mean it’s always a good idea to do so.

Yours truly tested more than two dozen titles through both CrossOver (v.26.1) and Whisky (v2.3.5) and, while results certainly varied in many important ways, a clear picture soon emerged: PC games on the MacBook Neo can work OK but it’s definitely a case-by-case situation. Old classics such as Portal 2 or the 2013 version of Tomb Raider do maintain 60 FPS with no trouble at all (as do less demanding AAA titles such as Ori and the Blind Forest or Outer Wilds). Recent cinematic, high-fidelity titles such as Alan Wake 2 or Hogwarts Legacy manage to run at 30 FPS, but barely, while others fare a bit better at around 35-40 FPS (such as Control or God of War) if concessions in both resolution and graphics quality settings are made.

Black Myth: Wukong, amazingly enough, manages to hit 30 FPS at a lower resolution… but it’s not smooth enough for truly enjoyable gameplay (nor are Marvel’s Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption 2). The same goes for Street Fighter 6 – it does not feel as responsive as on a mid-range gaming PC despite hitting the required 60 FPS – the same for GTA V, the same for Devil May Cry 5. More than the software translation layer working overtime to run these Windows titles, what’s holding the MacBook Neo back are the 8GB of RAM it has to work with. The A18 Pro chip is capable enough, so it all depends on how memory-demanding each PC game is to begin with: in practice, MacBook Neo owners can’t be sure about how each such title will perform on it until they’ve tried it.

A couple of days before this article was finalized for publication GameSir’s controversial GameHub software was also made available for Apple Silicon-based Mac computers – albeit in beta form – promising to make PC games playable on them in a more streamlined, organized way. Yours truly did not have the time to test it properly – and he’s hesitant to post impressions before it’s reached v1.0 status, as the final product offered to consumers may prove to be considerably different – but it seems that MacBook Neo owners will have at least one more option for PC game emulation at their disposal in due course.

The verdict: the MacBook Neo can game, but it all depends on who the gamer is

So back to the original question: the MacBook Neo can work, but can it game? Granted, nobody in their right minds would buy an entry-level laptop – not even an Apple one – for gaming, but can it actually deliver a good gaming experience to people getting one for general use? Short answer: yes, yes it can. Long answer: it really depends who’s asking, in the sense that it’s all about… expectations. The MacBook Neo will easily exceed expectations if the bar is low, but it will not meet them if the bar is too high.

Let us define some profiles, then, shall we? People who only play games every so often, without sticking to particular favorites for very long, will be more than happy with the MacBook Neo: they’ll be able to find a number of good titles to their liking, across many genres, in both the App Store and the Apple Arcade library. People who take games a bit more seriously and are interested in investing time in high-quality titles also have options: Steam currently offers around eight thousand Apple Silicon-native games, so they are bound to find several AAA or AA productions they can sink their teeth into.

It’s only when it comes to the mainstream or hardcore gaming crowd that things become problematic with the MacBook Neo. Mainstream gamers may want to play online with their friends, in which case the Neo – as any Mac really – offers limited choices compared to PCs. They may be enough for some, but not for all. The same goes for hardcore gamers who love competitive online games, but they also have quite a few high-quality single-player experiences at their disposal to enjoy instead. As for experienced Mac users who know how to set up CrossOver or Whisky, they will find that the Neo is capable of running a lot of PC games comfortably… as long as those PC games are not highly demanding on system resources to begin with.

A reality check, though, can put these limitations in perspective: the MacBook Neo was never really designed to work as a gaming laptop like many Windows-based ones are, so it’s almost pointless to compare it to those. For the crowd this $599 laptop is built for, the MacBook Neo offers just enough options to allow for some casual, but high-quality gaming time. That’s all. People who need a more powerful system or are more serious about gaming shouldn’t be considering a MacBook Neo anyway regardless of its pricing. It’s a nice little bonus that this cute little laptop can actually game. Treat this specific use case like that and you won’t be disappointed. Simple, no?