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I have downloaded Steam on my Mac, will I be able to buy No Man's Sky?

I am reading that it is only available for the PC, if so I am gutted

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  • There is currently no official release date for Mac.
    – Riley
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 12:32
  • As a fellow Mac owner, it's very easy to buy non-Mac games on Steam (and support will scold you a bit when you ask for the refund). I imagine your question is really whether you can play it.
    – ceejayoz
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 13:43

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Buy? Yes. Even if the Steam client won't let you buy the game because your OS is not supported, you can always use your browser to buy the game.

However, if you want to play the game, that is a different issue. According to Steam and GoG, these are the minimum system requirements for No Man's Sky:

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i3
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GTX 480, AMD Radeon 7870
Storage: 10 GB available space

As you can see, OSX is not supported. So no, you can't play the game on a Mac (yet).

However, assuming your Mac is relatively modern, you can install Windows on it (using Boot Camp). Therefore you won't need a new PC to play the game.

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    The OP might be able to play it, if his Mac has a graphics card of the required sophistication.
    – intuited
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 22:06
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To be honest, macOS probably wouldn't handle the game too well. Unless you have a Mac Pro, you will probably be left running the game (if it is ported or if you run it in Bootcamp or Wine*) on low graphics settings.

I played it today with a 980ti graphics card and it was kind of choppy even with a 6-core i7-5820k at stock 3.3 Ghz.

I have no idea if it will run on Wine, it's just a possible solution for those who use Windows Apps on Mac. If you have never heard of Wine, I suggest you stay away from this as it can be technical, especially since the developer stated that VCRedist 2010 is needed to run the game, managing software dependencies for the casual gamer is difficult in Wine.

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    Why wouldn't OS X handle it well? It's the same graphics as most windows machines, and my mac could definitely handle it.
    – user140963
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 20:15
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    @EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ. Multiple reasons, ranging from driver support to the way the OS is built. From my experience, games have always required a more powerful Mac compared to Windows PCs. I can't say if it's because of OSX, or if it's because the games just aren't optimized for OSX though.
    – Nolonar
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 20:39
  • Well the fact that I have a 6 GB 980ti Sea Hawk (comparable with Titan X) and a 6 core i7-5820k and can run the game at 91 fps, while a friend of mine has a quad-core i7 (4th Gen) and graphics card comparable to most Mac computers and runs the game at 9 fps. I have an iMac as well with a 680 MX that probably wouldn't handle the game. As far as driver support, that isn't as much of an issue as they use close to the same drivers, I can agree with the statement that the games are not optimized for OS X though.
    – Bob R.
    Commented Aug 15, 2016 at 1:27
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    Most game engines are written in C and C++ which is not a problem when it comes to portability other than ensuring that the proper header libraries are included when moving to a different platform. The problem with porting a game comes from the additional frameworks such as the .NET framework for Windows or the Obj-C foundation.h and Swift code needed for Mac. Then comes the lower level problems of how fast the code runs, which may not be suitable for NMS. You also have to account for the bitness of each architecture, 32-bit/64-bit, which is only a problem when it comes to 32-bit Linux.
    – Bob R.
    Commented Aug 15, 2016 at 1:33
  • @BobR. Luckily Microsoft has started open-sourcing the .NET framework
    – TylerH
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 13:42
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One other solution is to try the game under wine.

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Possible solution is to run a Windows Virtual Machine on your MAC to play the game or wait for MAC release.

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    No, this isn't really the only solution.
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 12:41
  • Then what is another solution?
    – Trass Vasston
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 0:53
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    @TrassVasston, did you read the other answers?
    – Nolonar
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 20:42

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