World of Warcraft on M1 Mac: Can it run on Apple Silicon?

World of Warcraft can run on M1 natively.

[toc] The king of MMOs, World of Warcraft is one of those games that keeps getting better over the years.

And unlike other MMOs that gave up on macOS a long time, Blizzard has always delivered stellar Mac support for World of Warcraft.

More M1 gaming? Visit our M1 Supported Games list for 100+ Mac games we have tested and confirmed as M1-compatible.

Art	Game	Genre	64-bit?	64-bit	API	M1 Support
	World of Warcraft	MMO	Yes		Metal	Native

World of Warcraft M1 Mac support

World of Warcraft runs on M1 Macs with Apple Silicon natively!

Last Updated: Oct 28, 2021:

What does “native” mean? Unlike games that require Rosetta 2 (a translation process) to run on Macs with Apple silicon, native games were coded to run on M1 Macs and should offer the best performance.

The game was tested on the following M1 Mac:

• 13-inch MacBook Air (2020): Apple M1 chip with 8-core CPU, 8 GB RAM

As you can see below, World of Warcraft is one of the few games that has been coded to run natively on M1 Macs. This should result in the best possible performance:

Blizzard has also confirmed their support for Apple Silicon Macs officially here:

With this week’s patch 9.0.2, we’re adding native Apple Silicon support to World of Warcraft. This means that the WoW 9.0.2 client will run natively on ARM64 architecture, rather than under emulation via Rosetta.

We’re pleased to have native day one support for Apple Silicon.

Tested versions:

• MacBook Air: MacOS Big Sur version 11.1
• World of Warcraft: Version 9.0.2

World of Warcraft M1 Mac benchmarks

These are the World of Warcraft M1 benchmarks we have gathered so far:

 Be aware that frames per second are limited to 60 FPS maximum on our test machine.

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

• Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
• 20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
• 30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
• 45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
• 60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

We usually aim for 30 FPS, because 30 FPS is enough to guarantee a smooth and fluid experience for most casual gamers.

M1 Performance VS Intel Macs

This is how World of Warcraft runs on M1 Macs compared to equivalent Intel Macs:

Submit & Request M1 results

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If you’re interested in testing games on your own M1 Mac or request specific games, you can join our dedicated Discord server.

World of Warcraft Mac requirements

These are the game’s official Mac requirements:

Note that requirements are higher than for the previous vanilla World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft on Mac: Verdict

World of Warcraft is one of the best examples of a Mac version done right.

It supports everything the Windows version of the game does, it includes cross-platform multiplayer and is always among the first games to adopt the latest macOS innovations (such as Metal and now native Apple Silicon support).
Many developers have tried to create the definitive World of Warcraft killer, but they all failed. Granted, there are other healthy Mac MMOs out there, but WoW remains the king of the genre.

And the game’s latest expansion, Shadowlands, which features new areas, systems, and races, has received great reviews too:

8.0 IGN

World of Warcraft Mac download

You can download World of Warcraft from the following digital stores:

• Battle.net
• Amazon.com

And more importantly, if you have your own M1 test results to share, on this game or another, you can share them with us on our dedicated Discord server.