Apple adds Game Mode for Mac among other gaming features

Apple announced a handful of new features for its products as part of today’s WWDC event. While the event was largely focused on the company’s non-gaming products and services, it did mention a few updates for gamers. These include the addition of a game-optimized mode on the new MacOS Sonoma, a porting kit for games to come to Mac and the promise of future games on the upcoming Vision Pro headset.

The biggest new feature the company announced for Macs is Game Mode. The mode supposedly makes gaming smoother by giving the game the highest priority for the CPU and GPU, delivering smoother and higher framerates. Game Mode also reduces audio lag for Airpods and input latency for Bluetooth controllers such as the DualSense. According to Apple, it works with all games.

Developer Hideo Kojima also announced that Death Stranding Director’s Cut is coming to Mac later this year. His studio, Kojima Productions, also plans to bring its future games to Mac (presumably this includes Death Stranding 2). As a corollary, Apple revealed that it’s working on a game porting kit for developers. This will allow developers to see how well their games run on Mac in days (rather than weeks) and reduces the time spent converting the game’s shaders and graphics codes for Apple’s OS.

Apple’s new mixed-reality headset, the pricey Vision Pro, didn’t receive much news on the gaming front. The Arcade subscription service received a namedrop, with Apple saying that Vision Pro users can play over 100 Arcade titles on the in-headset screen. However, the company also revealed that it had partnered with Unity on tools for game developers who wish to out their apps and games on the headset. In response to this news, Unity’s stock rose nearly 20% after the conference.