If you’re thinking about gaming on the M4 MacBook Air, here’s the deal: yes, you can play games on it, but it’s not built for serious gaming. The new M4 chip is powerful and can handle popular games like Resident Evil 4, but only if you lower the graphics settings. The MacBook Air uses passive cooling, so playing demanding games for a long time can lead to overheating and frame drops. For casual gamers or those who like emulators and lighter games, it’s a solid option.
Though I’m far more likely to invest too much time playing Pokémon GO over Dark Souls, I decided to test the MacBook and see if it’s an appropriate buy for gamers. While the device itself is perfect for a lot of things, I ran a couple of tests and I don’t think the machine is ready to replace your current gaming laptop. Let’s explore the gaming side of Mac and who will benefit most from the hardware.
Gaming with the MacBook Air M4: Continue Your Adventure?
With the 2025 MacBook Air featuring all the glorious power of the M4 chipset, no doubt there’s plenty of individuals who wonder if the device is good for gaming. After all, what’s not to love about a machine that features four performance cores, six efficiency cores, a 16-core Neural Engine and hardware-accelerated ray tracing? Of course, don’t forget about Apple’s API, Metal, either.
So how does the MacBook Air perform?
Before we begin, let’s talk briefly about some well-known alternatives for gaming on a MacBook. Considering there are a wealth of options for cloud-based gaming, I want to avoid them in this article for a couple of reasons. First, this is about the direct hardware capabilities of the MacBook. Since cloud-based services, such as NVIDIA’s GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming rely on additional machinery, I did not find it fair to include them.
I’m also avoiding using machine virtualization to emulate operating systems, such as Parallels running Windows, for essentially the same reason. This is about how the Mac performs on its own. Also, sorry Apple Arcade, I’m also skipping you this time.
Be aware that there are options for adding another dimension to your gaming experience, as they can offer a wide selection of games typically unavailable on Mac.
It’s in the Game: Running ‘Resident Evil 4’
While testing the cooling powers of the MacBook Air, I decided that the best test would be getting my hands on Resident Evil 4. Within that article, I found that things run pretty well if you don’t go whole-hog on the settings, but in the long run, the passive cooling of the MacBook Air may cause framerate issues when playing for extended periods of time.
With that being said, I was overall impressed with my experience playing RE4. Everything look fantastic on my Liquid Retina display, and setting up a controller (Amazon Luna) was incredibly easy. For this play through, I went with a max resolution of 2880×1864 and set the frame rate to ‘Variable’ rather than a solid 30, 60 or 120. While there are other ways you can customize the graphic settings, I left the rest as-is.
Utilizing these settings, things went rather well. However, attempting to push the machine to its limits will result in a reduced framerate, among other issues. This experience seems to be the norm, as the folks at ThinkView back up this claim with some hard numbers. The harder you push more advanced games, the more likely it is that you’ll get a framerate that’s not stable.
For the majority of users, I don’t think this will be a big deal. However, for the dedicated, it’s likely inexcusable. If you’re looking to seriously game on the MacBook Air, it’s likely going to be the machine’s passive cooling that will be a setback.
Looking at the Library of Games on Mac
The days of games being limited on Mac is fortunately coming to an end. I mean, it’s got Balatro, what more do you need? While I am ignoring things such as cloud and virtual machine options, the Apple App Store still has plenty to offer, as do alternate stores.
Looking at the App Store first, there is a plethora of popular titles currently available. Along with many hits from the Resident Evil franchise, other popular titles include Civilization VI, Death Stranding, Psychonauts 2 and more. While the library of available games isn’t anywhere close to what Windows offers, plenty are still available. One thing about gaming is that what appeals to one person doesn’t appeal to the majority, so I would encourage exploring the App Store to see what’s available.
While I am avoiding cloud-based services for this article, that doesn’t mean alternative app stores don’t have something to offer as well. For example, Steam is likely to have some of your favorites, such as Warhammer and Stardew Valley, and big names like EPIC and Blizzard have store options on Mac as well.
Where the MacBook Air Excels: Emulation in 2025
For gaming on a Mac, I think something that’s really worth talking about is the world of emulation. While emulators and Macs have been in cahoots together for awhile now, Apple allowing emulators into the App Store in 2024 has made retro gaming even more accessible to a larger audience.
Personally, OpenEmu is my favorite emulator for Mac, and I’ve even got a handy guide for getting it up and running. While accessing ROMs can be a legal grey area, the capabilities of emulation provide access to an entire world of retro gaming directly on your Mac.
Concerning emulation, remember that modern consoles are typically far harder to emulate over older ones. This is because your machine needs to not only power itself, but produce the power of the machine you’re attempting to emulate as well. Things aren’t always going to run smoothly, especially if network connections get involved, but if you’re new to gaming on a Mac, emulation is certainly one avenue to explore.
Finish Him: Can the M4 MacBook Air Game?
Let’s face it: a hardcore gamer simply isn’t going to buy a Mac in 2025. Even if Apple built a machine that was solely dedicated to gamers, I think it’ll take a long time for the company to rid itself of the stigma that Apple can’t game. While I feel the company is doing a great job proving this wrong with every new build and update, going out of its way to impress the truly dedicated to gaming isn’t something the company should do, and it’s highly likely it won’t.
After my experience with the MacBook Air, I feel this is a great machine for anyone that enjoys gaming casually or even slightly above that. This machine is for someone that spent all day building spreadsheets or studying and wants to vent some steam with a bit of fun.
Should you buy a Mac with the sole intention of gaming on it? No. In fact, if you’re a hardcore gamer, it’s pretty likely you already know what your next purchase is going to be, and I don’t think Apple is going to do much to stop you. However, if you’re looking for some thrills and fun after spending a day being productive at the office or at school, I think the MacBook Air M4 is going to treat you right.