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Larian Studios Cares About Mac Gaming, Blesses Us With Divinity: Original Sin 2

I think I was like… The only kid in middle school without a PS2.

Remember the kid who’d cut into conversations about Grand Theft Auto to talk about Double Dash? That was your boi. I never regretted my gaming preferences (my best friend and neighbor at the time had a PS2 so I never really missed out), but I’m no stranger to being on the outside of a conversation about platform exclusivity looking in – and having a Mac doesn’t help.

I threw something up yesterday about DUSK on Mac, a great port that broadens the platform’s offerings quite nicely. Steam and Blizzard have done quite a bit to make Mac gaming less of a joke, but there’s still a long way to go. So, when I saw the good folks from Larian Studios hop onstage at Apple’s New York event back in October to announce a port for Divinity 2 with tons of Mac-centric optimizations, needless to say I was more than a little excited.

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[Image of Touch Bar from The Verge – my measly salary wouldn’t dare allow me to splurge on such advanced technology]

Fast forward to right now, and Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition is indeed available for Mac via Steam or the Mac App Store. Elverils, a Mac porting studio, and Apple’s own Metal team have worked closely to make the critically acclaimed RPG run just as smoothly on most Macs as it does on your glorious PCs, and I gotta tell ya folks – they fucking did it.

Divinity 2 sings on my mid-2017 MacBook Pro, and boasts a ton of sweet little extra features for Mac that make the experience all the more enjoyable. Players with Touch Bars on their MacBooks will be able to enjoy watching it beautifully transform into Divinity’s menu bar, and anyone with a trackpad (I can hear the PC people grinding their teeth and I love it) will even be able to utilize some multi-touch gestures in-game as well.

Divinity is the first title to support HDR gaming on Mac, and also supports iCloud backups and cross-play so you and your PC buddies can hack, slash, loot, root, and toot together.

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One odd caveat to Divinity’s Mac port (and one that hits close to home) is that it has a problem with somewhat-older iMac models that still used Nvidia graphics. Of course, this was the year that iMacs made the switch to AMD, which are apparently not an issue. When I booted the game on my iMac (which has aforementioned Nvidia graphics), I got an error message and some weird texture popping, but the visual issues ended up ceasing after a few minutes of gameplay.

As a general rule of thumb, if you’ve got an iMac or a MacBook Pro anywhere from 2014 or newer, you’ll probably be right as rain running Divinity 2. That’s pretty inclusive when it comes to Mac, especially since Apple customers are no strangers to constantly upgrading their hardware whenever Tim Cook takes the stage to announce something new.

So, all in all, Divinity 2 provides a rare bright spot for us lowly Mac gamers, and if you haven’t given it a spin yet – there’s never been a better time. If you’re a fan of RPGs in any capacity, you’ll find something to love with Larian’s latest installment.

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Papa Dom

Co-founder, lead blogger, graphic designer, and manager of WGG's writing team - Dom has been writing about video games for over ten years. Dom's work has been featured on some of the world's biggest gaming news outlets - including Dexerto, GameInformer, and IGN.

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