Is it possible to play The Medium on Mac?
The Medium is a video game in the genre of psychological horror made by Bloober Team, a Polish gamedev studio. Appropriately, the game is set in Poland as well, several years after the fall of the Soviet Union. The story revolves around Marianne, a woman with a mysterious ability – she can enter and leave the Spirit Realm at will. She is contacted by someone named Thomas, who knows a lot more about Marianne than he should – he knows not only about her powers, but also about her dreams. He offers to explain the situation to Marianne, but only if she meets him. Intrigued, Marianne agrees. The gameplay of The Medium, meanwhile, is focused on two things: puzzle-solving and combat. Naturally, these take full advantage of the premise – switching back and forth between the Spirit World and the Earth is required to solve many puzzles, and sometimes you’d even have to inhabit both simultaneously. What’s more, certain places can only be explored in the Spirit World. Of course, the combat, too, is all about harnessing spiritual energy to create both shields and blasts. The Medium is certainly an impressive and highly acclaimed game, but it doesn’t matter how good a game is if you can’t play it. The Medium is available on Windows, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, but it cannot be played on Mac natively. However, with this guide, you will be able to play The Medium on Mac even though it is not officially supported.
System Requirements
| Minimal | Recommended |
|---|---|
| OS: Windows 10 (64-bit) | OS: Windows 10 (64-bit) |
| Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-6600 / AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500X | Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-9600 / AMD Ryzen™ 7 3700X |
| RAM: 8 GB | RAM: 16 GB |
| Video card: @1080p NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 1650 Super or GTX 1060 / Radeon™ R9 390X | Video card: @1080p NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 1660 Super / Radeon™ RX 5600XT | @4K NVIDIA GeForce® RTX 2080 or RTX 3060 Ti / Radeon™ RX 6800 |
| DirectX: Version 11 | DirectX: Version 12 |
| Storage: 55 GB | Storage: 55 GB |
Play The Medium on Mac with Parallels
The Medium 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 an application that allows for Windows virtualization on Mac with the full support of DirectX and GPUs. In simpler terms, what this means is that it allows you to install Windows 10 on Mac with just a couple of clicks and switch between MacOS and Windows instantly. So you will be able to run Windows, install Steam, and enjoy the The Medium game on Mac just like on a regular PC.
Note: Recommended devices to run resource-demanding games: MacBook Pro (models with an 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 models are suitable), Mac Pro (all models 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 are currently not supported by Parallels. AppsOnMac recommends using Parallels’ free trial feature to determine whether you can run the game or not if you’re uncertain.
Play The Medium on Mac with cloud gaming services
If you have an old Mac or it cannot satisfy the The Medium game system requirements, there is an easy solution. Cloud gaming services will be happy to provide you with sufficient computing power – though not for free, of course. All you need is a browser or a small client program and a good internet connection starting from 15 MBit/s. There are several great platforms that provide these services, among the best are Boosteroid, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Nvidia GeForce Now. Most importantly, The Medium is available on Boosteroid (pictured) and Amazon Luna.
Play The Medium 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 The Medium on Mac
This method is simple but time-consuming. If your Mac meets all the system requirements above, you can play The Medium on Mac by installing Windows. You need to set up a dual boot of Windows and Mac via BootCamp. This is an application that 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 want to switch from Mac to Windows and vice versa. Remember that Mac is just a computer, in the end. And while newer Macs have their own special Apple Silicon chips that cannot run Windows, older Macs are very much similar to computers that run Windows, they have Intel processors, compatible RAM, disks, and other components. So you can install Windows on an older Mac by allocating no less than 64 GB of disk space (to be able to run Windows and a couple of games) and following these steps:
For OS X El Capitan 10.11 and older
For MacOS versions prior to OS X El Capitan 10.11 you will need to create a bootable Windows USB.
- Download this Windows ISO file.
- Open Boot Camp Assistant (Go to Applications > Utilities).
- Define the Windows partition size and choose the Windows ISO file you’ve downloaded.
- Format the Windows partition and go through all Windows installation steps.
- When Windows boots for the first time, follow on-screen instructions to install Boot Camp and Windows support software (drivers)