We’ve recently had to make a difficult decision regarding the future of our macOS client for Last Epoch due to Apple’s announced upcoming transition to ARM-based Macs [“Apple Silicon”].
The future of Macs is promising, but at this time Apple’s transition will involve dropping instruction set support for the Intel and AMD CPUs that power most modern computers. Similar to other games, Last Epoch relies on those instruction sets and a number of third-party libraries to function properly. While many organizations have expressed a desire to adopt support for ARM-based Macs, it is unclear whether all of these libraries will be updated as necessary and how long it may take their new versions to become fully stable and feature complete.
Unfortunately, it is not within our means as an indie team with limited resources to properly support these upcoming Macs therefore will no longer be releasing updates on MacOS. However, Mac players will still be able to play the latest Last Epoch content through Apple’s Boot Camp feature and when using computers running Windows or Linux.
If you need help transitioning please see our support article for more information.
I’m not sure what this means. (And English not being my language doesn’t help.)
One sentence says the ARM Macs won’t be properly supported. The next says Mac players should use another OS (through Boot Camp or another PC).
Which will it be:
no macOS version of LE
macOS version of LE only for Macs running on Intel
macOS version of LE for all Macs but may not run properly on Macs running on ARM
This is understandable, but I hope dropping a platform doesn’t give rise to the idea of dropping Linux as well so as to focus on the larger player base.
I realize there will be a lot of tired and low-picking fruit jokes about this but I do find it very disappointing. I’ve been playing it on my bootcamp partiion for a while now since the last few updates for the mac have been shoddy at best. I’m a macuser. That won’t change regardless of how many jokes or tired arguments are given. I’ve been one since 1988. All my softare investment and time is invested in the mac. I only use the PC for, well, actually playing three video games (Grim Dawn and Wolcen, and now recently LE).
When I supported LE it was because I was excited that finally a company was supporting the mac platform, which, yes, I actually enjoy so you can flame away all you want but it won’t change that I prefer it to the PC.
Now that is no longer the case.
I completely understand the difficult decision the EHG has had to make. It most certain could not have been an easy one. This does not, however, diminish my disappointment. I’ve actively (for a casual) tried to take part in the community where I can. With the state of Bootcamp being in question now as well, I guess I may not have much more time with LE, sadly.
Yes, again, all the pundits are going to want to come out and poo-poo the mac and their decisions and yadayadayda. I’ve heard the same tired argument for decades. Don’t really care, I enjoy the mac experience. I do NOT enjoy the PC experience. Much like you might prefer white liquors and I like brown liquors. It’s a choice so get over it. I really do like LE. But I do not like it enough to complete switch my OS for a single game and all the other headaches that would entail.
Hopefully there will be a light at the end of the tunnel and something other then Bootcamp with the forthcoming new processors will prevail.
I can hardly imagine how disappointed mac user are.
I never used or preferd mac, but i was extremely surpised that EHG did support MAC AND Linux, which is a very very rare sight these days.
I do not have any expertise in those hardware specific, but with those changes mac is doing now, wasn’t it to be forseen, that alot of games would probably have troubles adjusting to such changes? (Don’t want to justify it in any way, just curious if one could already expected that)
Not sure when MAC did announce the shift.
I am hoping the best, that there will be a solid solution for you being able to stay part of the LE community.
Thanks. I do fully appreciate the difficult decision EHG had too make. I certainly don’t harbor any ill will towards them as I think they have a great game and they are a great bunch of designers.
So here’s hoping that at the very least there will be some way to port the game, like Bootcamp which is great, to the Mac.
I’ve never used Mac. But I know a lack of MacOS support is common among games. But I’m curious re the above quote though. Is the macOS experience really that different from PC? It doesnt look too different when I see people using macbook air
lol keep ignore and dropping the macOS if you want ( uninstalling now since this is a complete waste of time )
just give me my refund , I HATE myself for even believed in you guys and supported this game
it is mindset like this developer who are hindering the process on evolving and people like that are enabling microsoft by maintaining its monopoly position in the PC market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers
the apple macOS have supreme gaming experience with apple metal 2 since they are sharing similar OS architecture across tvOS macOS ios
i cant wait when apple switch over to ARM completely
That means MacOS is going to get a lot more attention over the next two years, which should be of huge benefit to the platform and will build confidence in the new ARM world.
You really cannot blame a small team of developers because a huge corporation decided to change the rules mid development. When the team said they would support an Apple product that product was based on instruction sets that about all computers use. In order for the game to work with an ARM Mac, it would take a complete rewrite of the code.
Let’s think about market shares of the OS most gamers use, Windows is tops and I am sure if Mac was tops, the developers would be having a deep conversation. It takes a lot of time and effort and money to write a good game the normal way without jumping through hoops based on the whim of a corporation.
I wish Apple the best with their ARM venture but hating yourself for believing in the developer of this game when such things are outside of the control of said developers is very shortsighted.
Entirely expected. Apple made the switch (just like PowerPC decades ago) and now everyone has to follow suit. Not much EHG can do about that until all the underlying software components they use (Unity et al) have made ports (which they likely will eventually).
My thoughts on Apples closed gated community aside, I love ARM technology - I have 6 Raspberry Pis and a drawer full of related ARM STM microcontrollers doing everything from monitoring my house, running Pi-hole and even a minecraft server for my kids… I sincerely hope that the technology switch is successful and as painless as possible but I am under no illusion that it will be a quick change.
Maybe EHG will be able to make a port in a year or two when everything they rely on is ported. Not their fault and we just have to understand that.
Yeah, I’m sure EHG will resume support for Mac once the various software they use properly supports the new architecture. Unless @henrycc265 would like to be a bit less of an angry gamer cliche and drop a couple of hundred grand on EHG to help speed that along…
Deeply disappointed. I can understand not supporting ARM-Macs, although the writing was on the wall for years.
But dropping support altogether borders on fraud. I backed this game on kickstarter since it was advertised as being Mac compatible, now you drop support with no option to get a refund?
Did you even investigate the emulation options on an ARM Mac? Apple already demonstrated the X86 version of Tomb Raider running on their dev hardware without any issues. Not having native ARM-support would not necessarily require dropping Mac support completely.
How is Apples decision to do this somehow EHGs fault?
This lack of understanding really gets my goat.
Sorry but Apple does not give a flying f about small independants like EHG and considering how long ago LE was started there is no way that the developers could have predicted Apples move if they were not directly involved with Apple which I bet they are not - they dont have enough zeros in their bank balance.
EHGs choice of underlying technology like Unity enabled them to provide a game that would be portable across multiple platforms (yes, to make Apple & Linux users happy) without having to maintain the portability themselves - this kind of dev is very very expensive and usually far out of reach of small players without partnering with technology providers like Unity et al. It does however make them dependant on these partners technologies ability to run on underlying hardware and they are entirely at the mercy of this fact.
Apple demonstating something on their own is entirely unrelated to a developer who is not even a blip on their radar…
You are unfair and lack understanding of the underlying complications of what Apple has done.
Okay, I bought the last Intel iMac that was just released two months ago. I can see you guys not wanting to put resources into ARM-based support whenever those Apple chips come out, but are you saying OS X users are done right now? No more Mac updates?
In the last few years, the Windows experience has borrowed a lot from one of the things the mac seems to have always done well UI. I’m not trying to start an argument about superiority or inferiority. My preference for ‘liking’ it is more based around how I can get around it with ease. When I use bootcamp and hop over to the PC to game (which is all I use it for) there are enough subtle differences to make it awkward (certain keyboard shortcuts, what interface components are named, etc.) There is also the cost of the transition because of all of the software I have infested over the years and the safety of the mac. Yes, macs get viruses, but in my 32 years of using it I have NEVER had a virus and I don’t even use virus protection software. (note: this is really a minor quibble because Windows has certainly gotten better about their protection.)
Lastly, as an old dog, I don’t have TIME to invest in becoming more fluent in the Windows ‘language’ as it were. My time needs to be spent developing and honing my actual craft and career and hobbies.
Again, it’s more of a preference/familiarity thing, not that one is better than the other. Like I said, some people like vodka, I like whisky. I will always drink/ask for whisky if given the choice and actually don’t drink vodka at all even if it’s the ONLY choice.
I agree with all of your post except this. It’s part of the tired arguments I’ve heard for 32 years of mac use. long, long, long ago Apple decided to be ‘closed’ in order to maintain more stability within it’s system. Windows went ‘open.’ The both have their plusses and minuses (PC users remember the days of Windows ‘plug-and-play’ and spending hours trying to get drives to work?). I really don’t to argue the merits of one over the other. I let that rest decades ago.
They’ve worked with developers (small and large) for years. They can’t cover everyone, absolutely and some, like EHG might get missed.
I don’t fault EHG at all. In fact, now resources can most likely be spent to make the game even better since they no longer need to keep the MacOS up to date. That’s probably good for everybody because as already pointed out ARM support may be in development much like Bootcamp was for the Intel based Macs. Then when they’ve made their amazing game a darling of the community they can revisit it again.
I think we are on the same wavelength here… no argument there.
I do not however see it as the old dead horse open/closed environment issue. For me it is simply a question of the $$$$ … I am willing to bet that Apple has been in contact with all the bigger players for years in anticipation of their move and I am willing to bet there will be a new version of Photoshop the moment apple is ready with their first Arm system.
As you say, Apple cannot cover everyone and definitely not people as small as EHG - its just not in their interests financially - at least at this stage. I would not be surprised if Unity was in the loop re this change and have simply said its going to take a long time to port (speculation obviously) and EHG just cannot hold on for that.
Extra resources for the game - sure… that would be my guess and probably played a factor in their decision to change.
This is a great way of putting it… works for everyone.
I have always maintained that whatever suits you and does what you need it to do is all you need. Never been a fanboy of any system - I am a fan of whatever system does what I need it to do and does it well.
The only reason I downloaded this game was because it was for Mac. I use my Mac mainly for work, school, and other things. Not a heavy gamer. I play maybe a few games on steam that doesn’t justify the price of buying a $700 or more PC just to play a couple of indie games! I just prefer MacOS over Windows. The graphics, interface, stability, security, everything is just better, smoother. It’s 2020 and people still think it’s 1999. Microsoft does not control everything anymore, they’re becoming more and more irrelevant. Almost everybody nowadays uses an iPhone and/or a Mac. What a disservice to the steam community. It’s your loss.
