How to Play Lethal Company on Mac

Lethal Company is a co-op first-person shooter that has you collecting scrap from industrialized moons, all to please your corporate overlord. The game presents itself very casually, following a comic book-esque style emphasizing visual clarity overall. But make no mistake, this is a horror game at its core and will challenge your sanity and teamwork throughout its gameplay.

With the game amassing over 90,000 positive reviews on Steam, it’s clear that there’s more to it than meets the eye. This begs the question, can you play Lethal Company on the Mac? And if so, how? Today, we dive into all how you can play the game on Apple M1 and Silicon. 

Can You Play Lethal Company on Mac?

Despite lacking official macOS support, Lethal Company can be played on Mac, thanks to several tools like Crossover, Parallels, and Bootcamp for Intel Macs.

Thanks to Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit, many high-profile Windows games can now be played on macOS with decent performance. However, we like to cover the games that run particularly well, which is the case of Lethal Company on Mac, thanks to CrossOver.

How to Play Lethal Company on Mac?

We here at MacGamerHQ are fans of native games through and through. But sadly, not every game seems to be going native. And, since we can’t let our gaming itch go away, we’re going to go over how exactly you can play Lethal Company on the Mac.

Best Method: Crossover

Expected FPS: 40 (DXVK and Esync Enabled)
Device Used: MacBook Air (8 GB)

Based on Wine, CrossOver is a translation layer that allows you to run Windows games (and apps) on Mac without having to boot Windows (unlike Parallels). CrossOver has been around forever, but in recent years, it has made impressive improvements, especially since it integrated Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit. It is, therefore, not surprising that CrossOver is the best method to run Lethal Company on Mac. 

As of today, the game works pretty well with Crossover, providing you with decent frame rates. However, your settings will vary depending on the type of chip you have. Plus, CodeWeavers, the company behind CrossOver, has been making custom optimizations to ensure Lethal Company runs the best it can on macOS:

Work fast and stay alive in Lethal Company, now running in CrossOver Mac. Scavenge scrap with friends in this multiplayer horror game. Download a 14-day fully-functional trial of CrossOver now and meet that quota. https://t.co/D9azb6l0n6 pic.twitter.com/0AQHyRO1oz

— CodeWeavers (@CodeWeavers) January 5, 2024

More importantly, with a CrossOver 14-day trial at your disposal, you can test out the game before purchasing the tool. We cover how to play Windows games using CrossOver here.

We have had difficulties in joining particular servers ever so often. However, you can just keep trying to rejoin it, and you’ll eventually get in. This, obviously, isn’t game-breaking but can be annoying.

Here’s how you can play Lethal Company on your Mac using CrossOver:

• Download and install CrossOver
• Create a new bottle with Windows 10 compatibility,
• Install Steam as a software, and download Lethal Company
• Once the game is downloaded, enable DXVJ and eSync.
• Re-launch the application and start playing. 

Quick Note: When playing Lethal Company, if you have any applications in the background using your microphone, your in-game microphone will not work. You will have to completely close applications like Discord before opening the game to get voice chat to work. 

Alternative Method: Parallels

Expected FPS: 30 FPS
Device Used: MacBook Air (8 GB)

Parallels is exactly like CrossOver. But, instead of creating a small translation layer, it makes an entire Windows virtual machine instead. The advantage of Parallels is that you get more of a solid framework, basically mimicking a Windows machine.

However, the disadvantage is that your Mac is now running two operating systems at the same time. Because of this, Lethal Company simply doesn’t run as well as it does on CrossOver, as your system consumes more resources.

We recommend Parallels for gamers who are running more high-end Apple Silicon, such as the M2 Pro and above. 

Playing Lethal Company on Mac with Parallels is pretty straightforward. You’ll just need to download Parallels, download Windows 11, and download Steam and Lethal Company the same way you would on PC.

Is Lethal Company Ever Coming to Mac?

Lethal Company does not seem to be coming to the Mac anytime soon. Generally speaking, when games run well on Crossover, there’s no incentive for developers to put in the time and effort to develop one-off native versions of the game, especially when the current player base on macOS for the game isn’t very mature either. Since most players who wish to play the game are able to play at a very reasonable level, don’t expect Lethal Company to be natively supported on Apple Silicon anytime soon. The developers of Lethal Company, Zeekerss, currently have no Mac-native game in their portfolio.

Lethal Company “Mac” Requirements

There are no official Lethal Company Mac requirements since the game isn’t officially supported on the Mac. However, the game’s official Windows requirements resonate well with the game. They are:

Mac games like Lethal Company

If you’re not feeling like dealing with Apple’s GPTK or CrossOver and simply want a native macOS game, there are several top-tier co-op first-person games out there. Granted, Lethal Company is quite unique, and there is no game exactly like it. However, if you’re looking for fun co-op first-person game to enjoy on macOS, Borderlands 2 is the first to come to mind. Alternatively, No Man’s Sky can also scratch that itch of exploring and collecting resources.