Someone tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming chops, and the results ranged from ‘miracle’ scores to ‘completely unplayable’

A truly mixed bag of results

13 Mar 2026, 03:30 · TechRadar

News By Alex Blake published 13 March 2026

(Image credit: Apple)

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A YouTuber tested the MacBook Neo’s gaming abilities in 10 titles
Native Mac games performed surprisingly well, including Cyberpunk 2077
Others hit very low frames per second (fps) due to the 8GB memory cap

Let’s be honest: as amazing as Apple’s MacBook Neo is, questions remain about whether it can handle any of the best Mac games. After all, when a laptop is loaded with just 8GB of RAM, can it really be expected to deliver enjoyable experiences at high frame rates (fps)?

Mac gaming content creator Andrew Tsai decided to find out by putting the MacBook Neo through its paces across 10 popular games. The results ranged from “completely unplayable” to games that ran “pretty much flawlessly,” with many of the results coming as a big surprise.

In total, Tsai tested the following games on the MacBook Neo: Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Counter-Strike 2, Dark Souls Remastered, Elden Ring, Mewgenics, Minecraft, the 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake, Resident Evil Requiem, and World of Warcraft. Some of the titles ran natively; others were Windows-only games loaded through a translation layer; and some console games were also emulated.

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First up, Tsai tested Cyberpunk 2077. Its settings had to be configured to the lowest possible options, including 720p resolution. Still, Tsai said that the MacBook Neo could run the notoriously taxing game on a mobile chip with “just about playable gameplay” was a “miracle” regardless.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Mac release was specially optimized for the Mac, as was Remedy Entertainment’s Control. Here, Tsai’s MacBook Neo achieved just under 50fps at 1080p resolution and low settings. Tsai described the experience as “very playable” and “a win for Apple silicon Mac optimization.”

Likewise, the Resident Evil 2 remake from 2019 – another Mac-optimized game – hit 60fps at 1080p resolution. As Tsai said, it “just goes to show what is possible once developers actually optimize for Mac hardware.”

Maxing out the memory

MacBook Neo A18 Pro: 10 games tested - YouTube

Watch On

There’s no question that the MacBook Neo is not designed to be a gaming laptop. While its A18 Pro chip is impressively performant given it’s a mobile product, its graphical power lags behind a dedicated GPU found in many gaming laptops. The MacBook Neo is also locked to 8GB of unified memory and lacks a fan – while the latter guarantees silent gaming, it also means more demanding titles can throttle once the A18 Pro starts heating up.

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