5 Ways To Play Hogwarts Legacy On Mac (inc. M1 & M2 Macs)

If you want to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac, here we show you all the options available to play it on a Mac including on the latest Apple Silicon M1 and M2 Macs.

Hogwarts Legacy is an open world action RPG set in the 1800s long before the stories that take place in the original Harry Potter series of books.

You play the role of a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens destroy the world of wizardry. You have to make allies, fight against Dark wizards and save the world of wizards.

Hogwarts Legacy was due to be released in 2021, but due to technical difficulties, it was postponed until February 10th 2023.

The Hogwarts Legacy Deluxe Edition for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC was released on February 7th though and included 72 hours Early Access to the game.

Unfortunately, Hogwarts Legacy was not released for Mac and there are no plans to release it for macOS in 2023 but fear not as we’ve looked at all the possible ways of playing Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac.

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Is Hogwarts Legacy Available For Mac?

Hogwarts Legacy is not available for Mac and there are no plans to release a Mac version in 2023.

Hogwarts Legacy was only released for Playstation 5 & 4, XBox One, XBox Series X/S and will also be released for Nintendo Switch in July 2023.

Can You Play Hogwarts Legacy on M1 & M2 Macs?

If your Mac was bought from 2020 onwards then it’s likely to be an Apple Silicon M1/M2 chip Mac and the options for playing Hogwarts Legacy on them are even more limited than Intel Macs.

You can check whether you have an Intel or Apple Silicon Mac by going to the Apple logo in the top left of your screen and selecting “About This Mac” and next to Processor it will state Intel or Apple Silicon M1/M2.

The best way to play Hogwarts Legacy on an Intel Mac is to use Boot Camp but Boot Camp is not available for Apple Silicon Macs meaning there are only a few ways of playing the game on M1 and M2 Macs.

Currently, the best way to play Hogwarts Legacy on Apple Silicon Macs is to use the Boosteroid Cloud gaming platform.

Boosteroid is basically a Cloud gaming service that hosts games on a Windows Cloud PC that you connect to remotely from your Mac.

However, you still need to own the game you want to play in order to play it on Boosteroid meaning you need to have purchased Hogwarts Legacy first.

Boosteroid subscription pricing is in Euros only and costs around €9.89 per month or €89.89 per year.

Initially when Hogwarts Legacy was released, Boosteroid was plagued with server problems due to the massive popularity of Hogwarts Legacy and many users found the game unplayable on a Mac.

This has improved somewhat now but you may still experience streaming problems or service unavailability during periods of high demand.

Boosteroid can also only stream games in 1080p resolution which means the image quality isn’t great, but it’s still playable.

The only other way to play Hogwarts Legacy on an Apple Silicon M1 or M2 Mac is by using OneCast which allows you to stream the Xbox version of Hogwarts Legacy games to a Mac if you have an Xbox.

However, this is the least recommended solution because if you’ve already got an Xbox, there’s really no need to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac.

Note that you cannot play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac using Xbox Cloud as there is no planned release for it on Xbox Cloud or on Xbox Game Pass.

How To Play Hogwarts Legacy On Mac

Although there are many ways to play PC only games on a Mac, most of them do not work for Hogwarts Legacy.

The only ways to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac are:

• By installing Windows on Mac for free using Boot Camp but this only works on Intel Macs as Boot Camp is not available for Apple Silicon M1 & M2 Macs. This allows you to download and install the Windows version of Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac and effectively allows you to use your Mac as a PC too.
• By using the Boosteroid Cloud gaming platform which works on both Intel and Apple Silicon M1/M2 Macs. However, you must have already purchased Hogwarts Legacy in the Steam or Epic store first and have a Boosteroid subscription.
• By using a cloud computing service such as airGPU or Shadow to install Hogwarts Legacy on a Windows PC hosted in the Cloud but this can work out expensive.
• By playing the Xbox version of Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac with OneCast which allows you to play Xbox games on a Mac. This obviously requires you to have an Xbox to stream Hogwarts Legacy to your Mac. Note that you cannot play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac using Xbox Cloud as there is no planned release for it on Xbox Cloud or on Xbox Game Pass.
• By using the new Apple Game Porting Toolkit in macOS Sonoma. This is mainly a developer tool to test Windows only games to see whether they can be ported across to macOS easily. However, some users have been able to use it to play games such as Hogwarts Legacy as it supports DirectX 12.

Here then are all the possible ways to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac.

1. Hogwarts Legacy On Mac With Boot Camp (Intel Macs Only)

Boot Camp is a free tool in macOS which allows you to install Windows on a Mac on a separate partition of the your Mac hard drive.

This then allows you to play the Windows version of Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac.

However, it only works on Intel Macs as Boot Camp is not available in the latest Apple Silicon M1 & M2 Macs.

Boot Camp enables you to boot your Intel Mac in either Windows or macOS whenever you want.

It also allows your Mac to dedicate all of its resources to running highly demanding games like Hogwarts Legacy for smoother gameplay than other ways of running Windows on a Mac.

To play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac by installing Windows with Boot Camp, we recommend having one of the following Macs:

• MacBook 2015 or later
• MacBook Air/Pro 2012 or later
• Mac mini 2012 or later
• iMac 2012 or later
• iMac Pro (all models)
• Mac Pro 2013 or later

When installing Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp, bear in mind that the Hogwarts Legacy PC requirements on Windows are as follows:

Minimum:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i5-6600 (3.3Ghz) or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (3.2Ghz)
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 4GB or AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 85 GB available space
• Additional Notes: SSD (Preferred), HDD (Supported), 720p/30 fps, Low Quality Settings

Recommended:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700 (3.2Ghz) or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 Ghz)
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1080 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or INTEL Arc A770
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 85 GB available space
• Additional Notes: SSD, 1080p/60 fps, High Quality Settings

Although the recommended system requirements state using Windows 10 to play Hogwarts Legacy, it also works in Windows 11.

It also recommends at least 85GB of hard drive space so you’ll need at least this plus at least another 64GB to install Windows on your Mac.

We’d therefore recommend at least 200GB of spare hard drive space on your Mac to install both Windows and Hogwarts Legacy to be safe.

To play Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac using Boot Camp, you then need to follow these instructions to install Windows 11 or these instructions to install Windows 10.

When you’ve installed Windows on your Mac, you then simply boot your Mac in Windows and purchase Hogwarts Legacy to install it as if you were installing it on a Windows PC.

There are two ways to buy Hogwarts Legacy for PC. You can buy Hogwarts Legacy for PC on Steam for $59.99 or $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition:

Or you can buy it from the Epic Games store for $59.99 or $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition:

Once you’ve installed Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac, you may need to lower some of the game settings such as the frame rate and graphics preferences if you experience lag.

2. Hogwarts Legacy On Mac With Boosteroid

Boosteroid is a Cloud gaming service that also allows you to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac.

Boosteroid is similar to Cloud gaming services such as GeForce Now and works on both Intel and Apple Silicon M1/M2 Macs.

However, unlike GeForce Now there are no games included in your subscription.

To install and play games on Boosteroid, you must already have purchased Hogwarts Legacy on either the Steam or Epic store and then Boosteroid will link your account to them.

You must also then pay for a Boosteroid subscription to play the game.

There’s no free version of Boosteroid and no free trial but subscriptions cost around $10 a month.

It’s important to be aware that Boosteroid’s servers have been severely affected by massive demand for Hogwarts Legacy which has made playing all games on it laggy and in some cases impossible.

Many users have found they either just see a “No Resource Available” error message when you try to launch the game or there’s a a lot of lag and frame drops even on fast internet connections.

Boosteroid is at least aware of this issue and has issued an apology to users of the service.

Another issue is that the maximum resolution of game streaming on Boosteroid is 1080p meaning the graphics are very low resolution and don’t look great on a Mac although the company is planning to upgrade to 4K servers soon.

Some users have also found that their saved games have disappeared on Boosteroid meaning hours of Hogwarts Legacy gameplay have been lost.

Boosteroid is aware of these problems and has issued an apology while it upgrades its server capacity but it’s important to be aware of this before subscribing to it to play Hogwarts Legacy.

Boosteroid is still a rapidly expanding service and received a huge boost recently when Microsoft announced a partnership with it to eventually bring Xbox games as well as Activision Blizzard titles to it.

With this in mind, here’s how to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac with Boosteroid.

• Sign-up for a Boosteroid subscription. You can either pay annually or monthly but if you pay monthly you can cancel at any time although it works out slightly more expensive.
• Download and install the Boosteroid for Mac desktop app.
• When the Boosteroid app is open, in the top right of the screen search for “Hogwarts Legacy”. Choose either the Steam or Epic platform that you’ve purchased Hogwarts Legacy on and click on “Install & Play”.

• On the Hogwarts Legacy game page click on “Play” and when the Hogwarts Legacy launcher opens click Launch.
• You will then be prompted to create a Hogwarts Legacy account within Boosteroid. An activation email will be sent to your email address which you must click on to activate.

You can then play Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac in Boosteroid.

Note that the maximum resolution you can play games on Boosteroid is 1080p so the quality won’t be as good as playing Hogwarts Legacy natively on a PC or console.

You can watch Hogwarts Legacy on Boosteroid in action below.

3. Play Hogwarts Legacy On Cloud Computer Services

An alternative to using a cloud gaming service like Boosteroid is to use a cloud computing service to play Hogwarts Legacy remotely on a Mac.

Cloud computing services allow you to install and play Windows only games like Hogwarts Legacy on a Cloud based Windows PC and work with both Intel and Apple Silicon M1/M2 Macs.

Currently, the only two cloud computer services that allow you to play Hogwarts Legacy remotely on a Mac are Shadow and airGPU.

Neither service actually host or provide the game for you but allow you use a Cloud gaming PC on which you can install Hogwarts Legacy and then connect your Mac to it to play.

However, they are different from Boosteroid because the provide a clean installation of Windows which you can pretty much anything you want with whereas Boosteroid is configured specifically for gaming.

Before you sign-up for either service, you’ll need to purchase the PC version of Hogwarts Legacy first and then install it on a virtual PC provided by Shadow or airGPU.

However, you’ll also need a subscription to either Shadow or airGPU to do this which isn’t cheap.

airGPU subscriptions start at $0.75 per hour for a cloud gaming PC with a Nvidia Tesla 4 graphics card which soon adds-up if you’re playing Hogwarts Legacy for long periods.

This doesn’t include storage space either so you’ll have to add an extra $3.50 per 50GB of SSD storage space.

Considering you’ll need at least 85GB of storage space to install Hogwarts Legacy and at least another 50+ GB to install Windows, this takes it close to $1.50 an hour to use airGPU to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac.

For more check out our look on how to play games on a Mac with airGPU.

A Shadow subscription starts at $39.99 per month for a cloud gaming PC with an Nvidia GTX 1080s graphics card with unlimited game play time and 250GB SSD drive space which may work out cheaper than paying hourly with airGPU.

The maximum frame rate you will be able to play Hogwarts with either service will be 60 frame per second but this is definitely playable on a Mac.

The data transfer speeds from both airGPU and Shadow are extremely fast though with speeds of up to 100GB per second possible.

Finally, assuming you own both the PC version of Hogwarts and have a subscription to either Shadow or airGPU, you’ll also need to use a remote desktop software to connect to your Mac to the cloud gaming PC.

We recommend using Parsec for this as it’s designed specifically for the needs of gaming remotely.

You can download the Parsec Mac desktop app for free without having to subscribe to a Parsec hosting plan.

Both airGPU and Shadow provide full instructions how to connect to them with a remote desktop client once you’ve subscribed.

Note that playing Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac this way will depend on the speed of both your internet connection and the latency of the servers.

If both are slow then you may find the game laggy and unplayable at times.

4. Hogwarts Legacy For Xbox On Mac

If you’ve got an Xbox then you can play the Xbox version of Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac by streaming it from your Xbox to your Mac.

This is the least recommended way of playing Hogwarts on a Mac because if you’ve got an Xbox already, you might as well play the Xbox version instead.

Normally the best way to play Xbox games on a Mac is by either in Xbox Cloud in a browser or by using Xbox Game Pass or by installing Windows on Mac with Parallels and then using the Xbox app from the Microsoft Windows store to play Xbox games in Xbox Cloud.

However, this doesn’t work for Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac for two reasons.

One is because Hogwarts Legacy uses the Denuvo anti-cheat protection software which does not work in virtual machines such as Parallels.

The other problem is that the Windows Xbox app can only play games that are available in Xbox Cloud and Hogwarts Legacy is not available to play in Xbox Cloud.

You can however still stream Hogwarts Legacy for Xbox to a Mac by using OneCast.

OneCast works on both Intel and Apple Silicon M1/M2 chip Macs so it allows you to play Hogwarts Legacy on all types of Mac.

OneCast even allows you to connect an Xbox controller to your Mac with support for vibration too.

You can stream your Xbox games on your Mac using OneCast in either windowed mode or full screen mode.

You can even connect your Mac to your Xbox away from home too although this requires a few simple manual network configuration changes which are explained in the OneCast user manual.

Here’s how to play Hogwarts Legacy on Mac using OneCast.

• Firstly, make sure that your Mac and Xbox are connected to the same WiFi router at home. OneCast uses your router to stream games from the Xbox to a Mac.
• Download the trial version of OneCast for free and open the DMG file downloaded. You can try OneCast for free although after 14 days it costs $14.99 to buy a license key for the full version.

• Drag the OneCast app to your Applications folder.

• Click on the OneCast icon in your dock to launch it.

• OneCast will then automatically detect your Xbox on your home network as long as your Xbox and Mac are connected to the same WiFi router. OneCast will prompt you to login into your Xbox with your Microsoft account details. Just use the same username and password that you use to log onto your Xbox.
• Finally you simply need to connect your Xbox controller to your Mac which you can do by activating Bluetooth. To connect an Xbox controller to your Mac to use with OneCast, go to the Apple logo in the top left of your screen and go to System Preferences and select Bluetooth.

Select your Xbox controller from the list of Bluetooth devices that appears and click Pair.

You can now use your Xbox controller to play Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac. You can disconnect the Xbox controller from your Mac at any time by going back into the Bluetooth settings or turning-off Bluetooth.

If you want more customization over how to map the Xbox controller to your Mac then we suggest using the Controlly app. You can read more about how to connect an Xbox controller to a Mac here.

Finally, you need to purchase Hogwarts Legacy on your Xbox Series S/X in the Xbox Store and download it onto your Xbox. There are various ways to buy Hogwarts Legacy for Xbox.

You can buy Hogwarts Legacy Deluxe Edition for Xbox as a digital download from Amazon for $79.99.

You can buy Hogwarts Legacy Standard Edition for Xbox as a digital download from Amazon for $69.99.

Hogwarts Legacy Deluxe Edition for Xbox also costs $79.99 in the Xbox Store.

The standard edition of Hogwarts Legacy costs $69.99 in the Xbox Store and is available from February 10th.

You can then use OneCast on your Mac to access your Xbox library and play Hogwarts Legacy on your Mac.

Although there is some lag at times, most games run pretty smoothly in 1080p using OneCast and it’s generally very impressive.

If you find that lag becomes a problem, you can try changing the video quality when you launch OneCast from “Very High” to “High”, “Medium” or “Low”.

It is also a good idea to shut down all other applications while using OneCast as it’s quite GPU intensive and your Macs cooling vents will kick in pretty quickly if you’ve got lots of other applications open.

Note that OneCast does not support a microphone for voice and in-game chat although this is planned to be added soon.

There is also a free alternative to OneCast called Xbox xCloud Client but it isn’t as easy to setup as OneCast and doesn’t support as many features.

Our advice is to use OneCast as the most reliable way to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac as long as you have an Xbox.

5. Play Hogwarts Legacy on Mac via Apple’s Game Porting Kit

While announcing the release of macOS Sonoma at the WWDC, Apple also released a new Game Porting Toolkit that allows developers to more easily bring Windows games to Mac.

The big news is that the Game Porting Kit supports DirectX 12 meaning developers can port games like Hogwarts Legacy to work on macOS.

It’s important to be aware that this process is a bit complex and only developers that are members of the Apple Developer Program have access to the Game Porting Kit.

The Game Porting Kit uses the open source Wine emulator to translate DirectX 12 to work on a Mac.

This only works on Apple Silicon Macs with the M1 or M2 chips – it does not work on Intel Macs.

If you are a member of the Apple Developer Program, you can download the Gaming Porting Kit here.

You can read more about the new Apple Game Porting Toolkit here.

Can You Play Hogwarts Legacy Using Parallels?

Although there are other ways to install Windows on Macs such as by using the Parallels virtual machine, Hogwarts Legacy does not work in virtual machines.

This is because virtual machines such as Parallels does not support DirectX 12 or the Denuvo anti-cheat software used in the game.

Denuvo is similar to the Vanguard anti-cheat software that’s used in games such as Genshin Impact and is deigned to stop people cheating in games but a side-effect is that it won’t work in virtual environments.

Virtual machines do not support either the Denuvo anti-cheat software or DirectX 12 meaning Hogwarts Legacy will not launch in it.

Can You Play Hogwarts Legacy With GeForce Now?

Hogwarts Legacy is not available to play on GeForce Now For Mac.

Although Hogwarts Legacy is available on Steam and you can link some Steam games such as Valheim to play in GeForce Now, not all game developers allow this and Hogwarts Legacy can’t be played in GeForce Now on a Mac this way.

Can You Play Hogwarts Legacy With Xbox Cloud?

Although Hogwarts Legacy has been released for Xbox, it has not been released for Xbox Cloud.

Therefore there’s no way to play Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac using Xbox Cloud or using Xbox Game Pass.

Can You Play Hogwarts Legacy Using Ryujinx?

Ryujinx is a Nintendo Switch emulator that allows you to play Nintendo Switch games on a Mac.

At the moment, Hogwarts Legacy is not available for Nintendo Switch but it is due for release on 25th July 2023 at which time, it may be possible to play the Nintendo Switch version of Hogwarts Legacy on a Mac using Ryujinx.

Will Hogwarts Legacy Be Released For Mac?

There are currently no plans by the publisher Warner Bros or developer Avalanche Games to release Hogwarts Legacy for Mac.

This doesn’t mean that a port of Hogwarts Legacy for Mac won’t be released at some point later this year.