Anti-cheat games on a Mac: which ones will not run
Updated 5 October 2026 · Uncork 1.0
Short version: games whose anti-cheat installs a driver into the Windows kernel do not run on a Mac through a compatibility layer — not in Uncork, and not in other apps of this kind. It is not a setting and not a bug that will be fixed later: macOS has no Windows kernel to install such a driver into. Uncork does not bypass the protection and will not.
Which games are on the list
These are the games Uncork warns about in advance: if one of them is in your library, a “will not start” note appears above the Install button, and before downloading Uncork asks whether you really want it. The list is kept by game name and the protection behind it.
| Game | Anti-cheat | Will it run |
|---|---|---|
| Valorant | Vanguard | no |
| Fortnite | Easy Anti-Cheat | no |
| Apex Legends | Easy Anti-Cheat | no |
| Destiny 2 | BattlEye | no |
| PUBG | BattlEye | no |
| Rainbow Six Siege | BattlEye | no |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and III, Black Ops 6 and 7, Vanguard, Warzone | Ricochet | no |
The list is not complete. If a game is not on it, that does not mean it works: it means we know nothing about it. The games we have checked are on a separate page.
Why
An anti-cheat of this type (Vanguard, Ricochet) does not work like an ordinary program. It is a driver inside the Windows kernel that watches the system from within so that it cannot be tricked. A compatibility layer is not Windows. It translates a Windows program's calls into macOS calls, but there is no Windows kernel in it, and macOS does not load Windows drivers. The protection has nowhere to stand, and a game that requires it refuses to start.
Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye have a Linux mode without a kernel driver, but the game's publisher has to enable it; there is no such mode for Mac, so these games do not run either.
In practice the only way around this would be to fake the protection itself, and virtual machines are usually refused by protection of this type too. We will not fake it: it breaks the games' rules, puts your account at risk and hurts people who play fair.
What to do if your game is on the list
- Cloud streaming. The game runs on someone else's computer and your Mac shows the video. GeForce NOW is one way to do it, if the game is in its catalogue.
- Streaming from your own PC. If you have a Windows PC with a graphics card at home, Moonlight and Sunshine show its screen on your Mac.
- A console. For online games with strict protection this is the simplest route.
- Windows on a separate computer. If the game matters more than the Mac, the answer stays the same.
Other anti-cheats
Games whose protection runs in ordinary user mode, without a kernel driver, may or may not start. It depends on the game and on the version of its protection, and some of them break after updates. We have not tested such games separately and claim nothing about them.
VAC, Valve's protection, is a separate case. Valve gives no guarantees for running Counter-Strike 2 through a compatibility layer; we found no official statement on this. We have no record of a match under VAC, so we cannot say that it “does not get in the way”, and nobody can promise you against account bans, and neither can we. Decide for yourself what to risk. What we recorded about CS2 on a Mac, and under which conditions, is on the page CS2 on a Mac: M3 Pro frame rates, mouse, VAC, FACEIT.
If you only play such games
Then Uncork is not for you, and it is better to know that before buying Uncork Pro, not after. You can check your own game for free — launching games in Uncork costs nothing — but that will not help with the games listed above: neither the core nor Pro runs them.
Read next
- How to play Windows games on an Apple Silicon Mac: every method, free and paid — every way to play Windows games on Apple Silicon, with price and limits
- Which games we have tested on a Mac — the games we have run ourselves, with frame rates, machine and date
- Uncork: frequently asked questions — price, safety, first launch, supported Macs and games