How to run Age of Empires 4 on Mac [Easy Guide]

Age of Empire games are a part of popular historical real-time strategy game series. So far, there have been three main entries and several very popular spin-offs.

All these titles are very beloved by their fans, and many were ecstatic when Microsoft announced that they will be releasing a new installment.

The wait is finally over, and the latest entry in the series is finally here, and Windows users download the game from their favorite distribution platform.

If you’re not on the Windows platform, you might have some issues running the game, so in this guide, we’re going to show you how to get Age of Empires 4 for Mac.

Is Age of Empires 4 available for Mac?

No, officially Age of Empires 4 is available only for Windows 10 and Windows 11. This doesn’t come as a surprise, since Mac isn’t a gaming-oriented platform.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t run your favorite games on macOS.

What are the minimum Age of Empires 4 requirements?

• Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit or Windows 11
• CPU: Intel Core i5-6300U or AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11
• Other: CPU with AVX support

How can I play Age of Empires 4 on Mac?

1. Use a virtual machine software

1. Start your virtual machine software.
2. You will be asked to download and install Windows. Click on Install Windows to proceed.
    
3. Wait while the Windows ISO is being downloaded. This could take a while depending on your download speed.
   
4. Now follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation process.
   
5. After doing that, start the virtual machine and get the game from the desired digital distribution platform.

This is one of the simplest ways to run Windows software on your Mac, but do keep in mind that running a PC emulation software takes a toll on your performance, so you might experience minor issues while gaming.

You can use almost any virtualization software, but we used Parallels Desktop because it’s the simplest to use, and it offers the best performance.

2. Use BootCamp

1. Download Windows 10 ISO.
   
2. After the ISO file is downloaded, navigate to Utilities.
3. Start Boot Camp Assistant.
   
4. When the introduction screen appears, click on Continue.
   
5. Now click on Choose and locate the ISO file that you downloaded.
6. Set the size of your virtual disk to 100-150GB.
7. Now click the Install button.
   
8. Windows installation will now start.
9. Select the language that you want to use and click Next.
   
10. Now choose Custom: Install Windows only (advanced) option.
    
11. Pick the BOOTCAMP partition.
    
12. Wait for the installation to complete.
13. After you’re done, your Mac will boot to Windows.
14. Boot Camp installer window will appear. Click Next and then Install.
    
15. Once the process is completed, click on Finish.
16. Now you just have to download and install the game from your distribution platform of choice.

This method doesn’t use as many resources as the previous one, but it does require you to restart your Mac and boot Windows whenever you want to play the game.

For more information on Boot Camp, we suggest reading our guide on how to install Windows on Mac.

Why aren’t Macs good for gaming?

macOS is based on UNIX, similarly to Linux, and this means that Macs can’t open .exe files. Another issue is the market share, and Windows computers have been dominating it for years.

The PCs take up 73% of the market, while Macs take only 15.5%, so this is the main reason why many developers don’t make their games available for Mac.

Simply put, optimizing games for Mac would take more time, effort, and money, with limited market share, it’s not worth it for most developers.

What is better for gaming, virtual machine or dual-boot?

If you want to play Windows games on Mac, dual-booting would be a better option since it runs the software directly on your hardware, thus resulting in better performance.

Virtual machines will run the new OS in a virtual environment, and since you’re running two operating systems simultaneously, you can encounter performance issues.

This is especially true with the latest titles that need more resources, so running them in a virtual environment can cause slowdowns and lower framerate.

Age of Empires 4 isn’t officially available on Mac, and currently, the only way to run the game is to use a virtual machine or to dual-boot macOS and Linux.

These aren’t ideal solutions, but Mac hasn’t been the best platform for gaming, so using workarounds like this one is the only option for the time being.

Have you found a different way to run Age of Empires 4 on macOS? If you have, feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.