How to play Genshin Impact on Mac

Is it possible to play Genshin Impact on Mac?

Genshin Impact is an open-world role-playing action game developed by miHoYo Limited, the same people that brought you Honkai Impact 3rd. From the beginning, a pair of twins is set to arrive on the land called Teyvat, a fictional place with lots of artifacts and mysteries yet to be unlocked. However, the impact of an unknown god keeps one of them trapped from leaving the place. This is where the adventure begins. Emerge yourself into a magic world full of epic bosses to beat through and reach a long-lost sibling of the main character. Perceive the power of all elements laid down in the world to defeat the most perilous and challenging monsters throughout the game. You can also unite with 3 more players to travel and explore the ubiquitous beauty of Teyvat together. Genshin Impact is a great anime-like video game accompanied by color-saturated graphics attained thanks to the Unity engine. Despite the game can be officially played across PS4, IOS, Android, and Windows for free, we will help extend this list to cover Mac users as well.

Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Parallels

Genshin Impact requires lots of PC resources, but if you have a powerful Mac computer (iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro) Parallels Desktop can be a solution. This is software for Windows virtualization on Mac with the full support of DirectX and GPUs. It allows you to install Windows 10 on Mac with a couple of clicks and switch between MacOS and Windows instantly. You can run Windows just like on a regular PC, install Steam and enjoy the Genshin Impact game on Mac.

Download Parallels Desktop

Note: Recommended devices to run resource-demanding games: MacBook Pro (models with Intel processor, discrete graphics cards, and 16 Gb of RAM or more), iMac (models with Intel processor, discrete graphics cards, and 16 Gb of RAM or more), iMac Pro (all versions are suitable), Mac Pro (all versions are suitable). Parallels on Mac computers with M1 (M1 Pro, M1 Max) chips may not support recent games. Games that require DirectX 12 and later currently not supported by Parallels.

Install Windows 10 on Parallels (Step 1)

Install Windows 10 on Parallels (Step 2)

Install Windows 10 on Parallels (Step 3)

Install Windows 10 on Parallels (Step 4)

Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Boosteroid or Nvidia GeForce Now

Boosteroid and Nvidia GeForce Now fully support Genshin Impact to the date and you can play on Mac, Android or old Windows PC. Register and explore cloud gaming now!

If you have an old Mac or it cannot satisfy Genshin Impact game system requirements, there is an easy solution. Cloud gaming provides you with sufficient cloud resources for a fixed fee. All you need is a small client program and a good internet connection starting from 20 MBits/s. There are several great services, that provide such an opportunity, among the best are Boosteroid and Nvidia GeForce Now. Both services have Genshin Impact in their game catalog, so you can play on any Mac computer (starting from MacOS 10.10) and even Android!

Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Boosteroid

Play Genshin Impact on Mac with Nvidia GeForce Now

Play Genshin Impact (Android) on Mac with Bluestacks

There is also another wonderful workaround of Genshin Impact and Mac direct incompatibility. There is an Android version of Genshin Impact available, and Bluestacks is industry-leading Android emulation software for PC and Mac on the market. You can download Bluestacks, sign in to your Google account and install Genshin Impact just like an app on your smartphone. After this, you will be able to play the game on a wonderful Mac screen using your keyboard and mouse (trackpad) or any game controller! Download Bluestacks for Mac here.

Play Genshin Impact on Mac with BootCamp

Note: Mac computers with new Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3 Pro, or M1, M2, M3 Max) currently do not support BootCamp. In this case, please, use the options above to run Genshin Impact on Mac

This method is simple but time-consuming. If your Mac meets the system requirements above, this is probably the best way to play Genshin Impact for now. You need to set up a dual boot of Windows and Mac via BootCamp. BootCamp allows users to choose the system to work in on startup, however, you won’t be able to switch between systems like in Parallels. You will need to reboot your machine every time you switch from Mac to Windows and vice versa. Remember that Mac is just a computer, that uses common processors, RAM, disks, and other components. So you can install Windows on Mac by allocating disc space of a minimum of 64 Gb (to be able to run Windows and a couple of games). To set up Windows via BootCamp, please, do the following:

For OS X El Capitan 10.11 or later

Mention, that for MacOS versions prior to OS X El Capitan 10.11 you will need to create bootable Windows USB.

1. Download Windows ISO file
2. Open Boot Camp Assistant (Go to Applications > Utilities)
3. Define the Windows partition size, choose downloaded Windows ISO file
4. Format Windows partition and go through all Windows installation steps
5. When Windows boots for the first time, follow on-screen instructions to install Boot Camp and Windows support software (drivers)