Apple has ended 32-bit support with the release of OS Catalina, meaning many older games purchased may not run on the free OS update.
Steam will run fine in macOS Catalina. However, what you may find is that it doesn’t launch initially. If this is the case, totally remove it from your system and then reinstall it from Steam’s website after you’re on macOS Catalina. This will ensure that the correct (i.e. 64-bit) version of Steam is installed for macOS. I have steam on my 2015 mbp 13 and haven’t had any issues running games in Catalina. It does give me the warning but the games play anyway. Some of them runs fine but may crash like in Dead Cells. Install games using Steam for Mac. Like the Mac App Store, Steam offers free and paid-for games. For free games, click the Play Game button. This opens a window with options for creating a desktop.
Moreover, Steam users will also want to hold off on the update, as the Steam client itself is a 32-bit application.
MacGamerHQ has compiled a list of affected games on MacOS, with many games like the LEGO games no longer working in the new OS.
As of this writing even Valve’s first-party games like Team Fortress 2 and Portal, some of the first high profile games to come to Mac, have also been affected by the update.
While the update may seem sudden, users of High Sierra and Mojave will probably have encountered warnings that Apple would make the sheer jump to 64-bit only.
No statement has been issued by Valve or Apple regarding the issue as of this writing.
Steam Games Catalina
All Feral games that are still available for purchase via the Feral Store, Mac App Store or Steam are 64-bit applications that can be played on macOS 10.15 Catalina. For ease of reference, a list of Feral’s 64-bit games is below:
Can't Play Steam Games On Mac Catalina Full
- A Total War Saga: FALL OF THE SAMURAI
- A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA
- A Total War Saga: TROY
- Alien: Isolation
- Batman: Arkham City
- BioShock Remastered
- Company of Heroes 2
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- DiRT 4
- DiRT Rally
- F1 2016
- F1 2017
- GRID Autosport
- HITMAN
- LEGO DC Super-Villains
- LEGO Disney•Pixar's The Incredibles
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
- The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame
- LEGO The Incredibles
- Life is Strange
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- Life is Strange 2
- Mad Max
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Sid Meier's Railroads!
- Sleeping Dogs
- Thief
- Tomb Raider
- Total War: EMPIRE
- Total War: MEDIEVAL II
- Total War: NAPOLEON
- Total War: SHOGUN 2
- Total War: THREE KINGDOMS
- Total War: WARHAMMER
- Total War: WARHAMMER II
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II / Retribution / Chaos Rising
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III
- XCOM 2
- XCOM 2 – War of the Chosen