'Total War: Warhammer III' coming to Apple Silicon - but not Intel Macs

AppleInsider

Feral Interactive has announced that "Total War: Warhammer III" is arriving on macOS on Thursday, but it will require an Apple Silicon Mac to play.

Credit: Feral Interactive

The company claims that the game perfects the Total War strategy of "massive real-time battles and turn-based strategy." It will feature seven unique races, hundreds of units to command, and 10 Legendary Lords.

"A game of mind-blowing proportions that marks a fresh evolution for the beloved Total War franchise, WARHAMMER III is based on the renowned Warhammer Fantasy Battle tabletop wargame from Games Workshop," Feral Interactive wrote of the game.

Interestingly, "Total War: Warhammer III" won't be launching on Intel-based Mac devices. Users will need some form of M1-powered Mac to download and install the game.

Most of Apple's current lineup has already made the switch to Apple Silicon, with the Mac Pro being the only holdout. It isn't clear why the Warhammer title isn't launched on Intel-based Mac machines, since it's available for Windows PCs with Intel chips.

On M1 Macs, the game will require macOS 12.0.1, at least 8GB of RAM, and 125GB of internal storage.

"Total War: Warhammer III" is available for $59.99. Users can learn more and download the game on Steam.

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22july2013

Interesting. Right now, my copy of CIV VI works only on my Intel Mini, not my M1 Mini. (Some sort of mouse driver problem on a 4K monitor.) I complained to the developer over a year ago, but they haven't done anything.

mike wuerthele

22july2013 said:

Interesting. Right now, my copy of CIV VI works only on my Intel Mini, not my M1 Mini. (Some sort of mouse driver problem on a 4K monitor.) I complained to the developer over a year ago, but they haven't done anything.

Wierd - what mouse are you using? Apple's Magic Trackpad works fine on my 4K with Civ VI.

daalseth

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

jintech

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But but but but it needs to run on my 68K Mac! 

lkrupp

JinTech said:

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But but but but it needs to run on my 68K Mac! 

There exist in this world certain groups of tech luddites. I mean the OS 9 forum on the Apple Discussion Forums is not dead by a long shot.

xbit

Looking forward to this. The only other decent Apple Silicon-native game is Disco Elysium!

22july2013

Mike Wuerthele said:

22july2013 said:

Interesting. Right now, my copy of CIV VI works only on my Intel Mini, not my M1 Mini. (Some sort of mouse driver problem on a 4K monitor.) I complained to the developer over a year ago, but they haven't done anything.

Wierd - what mouse are you using? Apple's Magic Trackpad works fine on my 4K with Civ VI.

I tried a lot of things, but I never tried using my old Apple Magic Trackpad. Thanks for the idea. If I can find my trackpad under my clutter, I'll test it.

What happens for me is that the mouse actually clicks about 10% off where the pointer shows on the screen. And some screen elements are also displayed in incorrect locations. For both reasons it's impossible to play. I've tried many different scales/resolutions and I contacted the developer for answers last year, twice, but it was never resolved.

saarek

lkrupp said:

JinTech said:

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But but but but it needs to run on my 68K Mac! 

There exist in this world certain groups of tech luddites. I mean the OS 9 forum on the Apple Discussion Forums is not dead by a long shot.

Some of us just love to keep the old machines going, Mac Repository, for example, is a fantastic site stuffed full of old software. 

I love tinkering around with the old Apple Products, just recently bought a beautiful PowerBook G4 where the Hard Disk had failed. Have given it a good clean out and placed in an SSD Drive, also maxed out the Ram for good measure. Such a lovely computer and surprisingly quick once the SSD is fitted.

The new generation has my attention too, am typing this on a 16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro. So nice to see Apple actually listen to customers and produce a MacBook Pro that actually deserves the "Pro" moniker. I have great respect for Jonny Ive, but my god those 2016 - 2021 Intel MacBook Pro's were all terrible.

A bit more on topic, I'm not surprised to see Feral going AS only. They have always been good adopters of the latest Apple Technology, investing in Intel Binary software now will simply see increasingly diminished returns. Much better to aim any new products at the future.

chadbag

Strange that they don’t support currently sold machines.  I can see dropping Intel in a few years after the last one is sold and the installed base has gone down  I would bet your installed base of Macs today is still Intel-heavy.  

My kids have enjoyed the other Total War stuff we’ve gotten in Steam.  Will be awhile before this one though. 

fidonet127

chadbag said:

Strange that they don’t support currently sold machines.  I can see dropping Intel in a few years after the last one is sold and the installed base has gone down  I would bet your installed base of Macs today is still Intel-heavy.  

I think they did it for several reasons. One is they now they have a known minimum baseline for Macs that can handle the game. Two is the additional code needed for Intel Macs is additional time and money plus support. Three is less need for Rosetta 2, which at some point will be removed by Apple. 

mpantone

xbit said:

Looking forward to this. The only other decent Apple Silicon-native game is Disco Elysium!

LOL, that's a hilarious comparison!

Disco Elysium can run on a potato:

https://www.pcgamer.com/disco-elysium-will-now-run-on-very-low-spec-machines/

You don't need Apple Silicon to run Disco.

The more impressive news today is that Nvidia GeForce NOW will run at 4K resolution on native GFN apps on Windows and Mac PCs for subscribers at the 3080 level.

edited May 2022

mcdave

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But so odd they didn’t do a universal version, they must have the libraries for both. Steam apparently shows 38% Apple Silicon traction but this is the one release where supporting both ISAs makes sense.

mcdave

I thought Feral would have pushed a Universal version of the Tomb Raider trilogy by now. It would be great if Apple could assist as gaming is a weak spot which could tip consumers (not the top 15% of gamers) off Macs.

mcdave

It has to run under Rosetta. What was the point?

marvin

mcdave said:

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But so odd they didn’t do a universal version, they must have the libraries for both. Steam apparently shows 38% Apple Silicon traction but this is the one release where supporting both ISAs makes sense.

The following video mentions Feral said they had performance and stability issues on the AMD GPUs but they are working on it and if they fix the issues they will update it to be universal:

mcdave said:

I thought Feral would have pushed a Universal version of the Tomb Raider trilogy by now. It would be great if Apple could assist as gaming is a weak spot which could tip consumers (not the top 15% of gamers) off Macs.

The developer of the Tomb Raider franchise hasn't been making a lot of profit. Square Enix posted earnings that showed only a few million per year in net income. They sold the development studios and IP recently to a holding company for $300m:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/EMBRAC-B.ST/
https://www.polygon.com/23053137/square-enix-embracer-eidos-crystal-dynamics-tomb-raider

Square Enix wants to focus on blockchain/AI/cloud.

This could have been a good purchase for Apple. The studios would only have a burn rate around $100m per year and they would have owned Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and these developers have done the Marvel games.

Apple could still potentially buy them out as the Embracer Group has an 80b SEK ($8b) market cap and that's 124 studios, including Aspyr. Ubisoft is another company that will potentially be up for a buyout. The family wants to maintain control of it though but maybe Apple could buy out the rest of the shareholders and take it private with them:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-05-04-guillemot-family-is-considering-buying-ubisoft

This would give them Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Rayman, Prince of Persia. $4b for Ubisoft, $8b for Embracer would give them a lot of high quality IP to use for Apple Arcade. To make back $12b from $5/month subs would take 20m subs over 10 years, not including operating costs so I can see why they would do lower investments in gaming but it would help drive some hardware sales.

mcdave

Marvin said:

mcdave said:

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But so odd they didn’t do a universal version, they must have the libraries for both. Steam apparently shows 38% Apple Silicon traction but this is the one release where supporting both ISAs makes sense.

The following video mentions Feral said they had performance and stability issues on the AMD GPUs but they are working on it and if they fix the issues they will update it to be universal:

mcdave said:

I thought Feral would have pushed a Universal version of the Tomb Raider trilogy by now. It would be great if Apple could assist as gaming is a weak spot which could tip consumers (not the top 15% of gamers) off Macs.

The developer of the Tomb Raider franchise hasn't been making a lot of profit. Square Enix posted earnings that showed only a few million per year in net income. They sold the development studios and IP recently to a holding company for $300m:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/EMBRAC-B.ST/
https://www.polygon.com/23053137/square-enix-embracer-eidos-crystal-dynamics-tomb-raider

Square Enix wants to focus on blockchain/AI/cloud.

This could have been a good purchase for Apple. The studios would only have a burn rate around $100m per year and they would have owned Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and these developers have done the Marvel games.

Apple could still potentially buy them out as the Embracer Group has an 80b SEK ($8b) market cap and that's 124 studios, including Aspyr. Ubisoft is another company that will potentially be up for a buyout. The family wants to maintain control of it though but maybe Apple could buy out the rest of the shareholders and take it private with them:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-05-04-guillemot-family-is-considering-buying-ubisoft

This would give them Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Rayman, Prince of Persia. $4b for Ubisoft, $8b for Embracer would give them a lot of high quality IP to use for Apple Arcade. To make back $12b from $5/month subs would take 20m subs over 10 years, not including operating costs so I can see why they would do lower investments in gaming but it would help drive some hardware sales.

Buying in to this scale would make a statement, build game optimisation IP & could kick start an Apple Arcade premium tier service but would it also create animosity with other developers? To be successful shouldn’t Apple pull back to category facilitation? Though I guess it’s always had skin in the software game.

marvin

mcdave said:

Marvin said:

mcdave said:

DAalseth said:

Not a surprise. AS is the future and it was only a matter of time for software to start only running on it. They don't make things for PPC any more. Soon enough Intel Mac software will be the same.

But so odd they didn’t do a universal version, they must have the libraries for both. Steam apparently shows 38% Apple Silicon traction but this is the one release where supporting both ISAs makes sense.

The following video mentions Feral said they had performance and stability issues on the AMD GPUs but they are working on it and if they fix the issues they will update it to be universal:

mcdave said:

I thought Feral would have pushed a Universal version of the Tomb Raider trilogy by now. It would be great if Apple could assist as gaming is a weak spot which could tip consumers (not the top 15% of gamers) off Macs.

The developer of the Tomb Raider franchise hasn't been making a lot of profit. Square Enix posted earnings that showed only a few million per year in net income. They sold the development studios and IP recently to a holding company for $300m:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/EMBRAC-B.ST/
https://www.polygon.com/23053137/square-enix-embracer-eidos-crystal-dynamics-tomb-raider

Square Enix wants to focus on blockchain/AI/cloud.

This could have been a good purchase for Apple. The studios would only have a burn rate around $100m per year and they would have owned Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and these developers have done the Marvel games.

Apple could still potentially buy them out as the Embracer Group has an 80b SEK ($8b) market cap and that's 124 studios, including Aspyr. Ubisoft is another company that will potentially be up for a buyout. The family wants to maintain control of it though but maybe Apple could buy out the rest of the shareholders and take it private with them:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-05-04-guillemot-family-is-considering-buying-ubisoft

This would give them Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Rayman, Prince of Persia. $4b for Ubisoft, $8b for Embracer would give them a lot of high quality IP to use for Apple Arcade. To make back $12b from $5/month subs would take 20m subs over 10 years, not including operating costs so I can see why they would do lower investments in gaming but it would help drive some hardware sales.

Buying in to this scale would make a statement, build game optimisation IP & could kick start an Apple Arcade premium tier service but would it also create animosity with other developers? To be successful shouldn’t Apple pull back to category facilitation? Though I guess it’s always had skin in the software game.

Offering first party software is always awkward as they want to promote this but also not stifle other developers/publishers on the same platform. The console manufacturers manage it ok, even Nintendo where it's very hard to compete with their first-party titles. As part of a subscription service, it's easier to do because it's drawing more players into the subscription, which acts like a rising tide lifting all boats. An exclusive AAA Tomb Raider title could pull in 5-10 million subs on its own. They'd also have the option to do timed exclusives like 6-12 months on Apple Arcade and then launch on PC/console at $60. So they pick up 5m subs for $5 x 12 months ($300m) and then get 5m unit sales at $60 ($300m) on PC/console for a major release.

Due to the low price and number of subscribers, Apple Arcade isn't drawing in the big developers and titles. Some first party exclusives would go a long way. Apple had some unimpressive results trying to get bigger Mac titles ported in the past and that probably put them off investing more in gaming but they were old games that ran better and were cheaper on other platforms. Another thing that doesn't work well is watered down titles, like Deus Ex Go. The desktop/console games sold 12 million copies and Deus Ex Go 2 million:

https://pcgameabout.com/posts/announcements/deus-ex-human-revolution-and-mankind-divided-sold-over-12-million-copies

They could always commission exclusives (timed or full) from these groups by funding production and that way it's lower risk. They could approach Embracer Group for remakes of early Tomb Raider games and fund development for around $100m and they get 12 months exclusive. They can get 120 exclusives like this for $12b and no baggage.

Controller-required games should be allowed on mobile too. If Total Warhammer can run on M1 Macs, it should be possible to run on M1 iPads. One thing that would help here is supporting a minimal hardware controller that is just shoulder buttons so that people can have a compact gaming case attached all the time or a first-party compact controller.