For once, Mac gets a game first as Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom now runs natively on Apple's M4 chip

Credit: Nintendo Published Oct 18, 2026, 12:07 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Someone got Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to run natively on an M4 Mac with instant loading and 90fps support. The port rewrites Switch code as needed, maps NVN graphics to Metal 4, and answers system services via a host. This is a very unofficial open-source port. You need to supply your own game dump. In an interesting twist, someone has gotten Nintendo Switch masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom running natively on an M4 Mac, including "instant loading" and 90fps support. It looks like that, for once, Mac has gotten a game before PC, though obviously in a very unofficial capacity. The port, first shown off on Twitter by @liyong2077 (Yong Li) (see the video below), doesn't run through an emulator. Instead, according to Li, the game's ARM64 code runs directly on the M4 and, where needed, is rewritten. "..the Switch system services are answered by a small host, and the game's NVN graphics are rebuilt on Metal 4," writes Li on the port's translated GitHub page, listed as MacNativeGames. Tears of the Kingdom likely landed on Mac first over PC because both the Switch and Apple's chips use Arm64 architecture. Li emphasizes that the repository doesn't contain any game files and that the project isn't affiliated with Nintendo. Also, there's no straightforward app that lets you upload the disc image directly. Instead, you need to handle it yourself with Xcode command-line tools and Homebrew. The project was also built with AI help. While the game seems to run relatively smoothly based on Li's video and early impressions on Twitter, he notes some lag when entering new areas and while shaders compile. I haven't tried the port myself yet, but plan to soon (I'll update this story with my impressions regarding performance once I do). Like other similar port projects, you'll need to provide your own game dump You can already play Tears of the Kingdom on PC through an emulator Li says they tested the game on an M4 MacBook Air and Mac mini, and once 8582 shaders were compiled, the game hit an impressive 90fps. Like the wave of retro and modern decompilations/recompilations that have appeared over the past few weeks, getting this port of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom running requires you to provide your own XCI or NSP file, which you can dump from your own cartridge or acquire elsewhere. The fact that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom even ran on the original Switch was an impressive achievement for Nintendo, and the official Switch 2 version hitting a solid 60fps was a welcome improvement. It'll be interesting to see how far people can push Tears of the Kingdom onto far more powerful hardware. You can also already play Tears of the Kingdom on PC with emulators like Eden and Citron, two Yuzu-based emulators. You can also push the game to higher frame rates with mods like NX Optimizer. In other PC port-related news, the Link's Awakening remake for the original Switch was recently given the static recompilation treatment, making the game playable on PC. Someone also ported Halo: Combat Evolved to the Nintendo 64, complete with four-player multiplayer. Yes, you read that correctly.