Halo has a long history, but its origins lie on Mac, and now, it’s finally possible to fulfill the game’s original legacy.
There’s something so viscerally wrong about seeing Halo on a Mac. Apple’s computers aren’t known for gaming, sure, but Halo, in particular, looks out of place. It’s Microsoft’s star child, and it’s the franchise Microsoft has hung its hat on for 22 years.
But the game was originally designed for the Mac, and now, you can play it right on your MacBook. Apple’s recent Game Porting Toolkit makes all kinds of Windows games playable on the Mac — in theory. Considering the franchise’s storied history with Apple, I gave it a shot to see if the platform is ready for prime time and if I could fulfill the legacy of Halo as a game made specifically for the Mac.Halo, the Mac exclusive?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s no official way to play Halo on a Mac. Microsoft doesn’t currently own the game’s developer, Bungie, but it definitely owns Halo, meaning the majority of the franchise has been available exclusively on Xbox and PC over the years. That remains true today with The Master Chief Collection, which has become the de facto way to play through all the updated versions of the games under one roof, short of Halo Infinite.
There’s one part of Halo’s history, though, that Microsoft would rather not celebrate. Specifically, Bungie’s early beginnings as a poster child for Apple’s ecosystem — not Microsoft’s.
The company was founded by Alex Seropian and Jason Jones in 1991. In 1992, the company released its first game: Minotaur. The game was originally developed by Jones, and the duo ported it over to the Macintosh from the Apple II. From there, Bungie turned into an Apple superstar. Most remember Bungie on Apple for its Marathon trilogy, which was built for Apple’s platform as an alternative to PC-exclusive shooters.
Apple’s close partnership with Bungie in the early years of the company didn’t go unnoticed. It all came together at Macworld 1999, where Steve Jobs, wearing his signature black turtleneck, announced a new game exclusively built for Mac: Halo. It’s not the Halo we know today. Master Chief is there, but the game was originally developed as a strategy game, and by the time it was announced at Macworld, it was a third-person shooter.
Then, things changed. Microsoft purchased Bungie in 2000 and introduced its first console exclusive, Halo: Combat Evolved. This reportedly infuriated Jobs. Why? Apparently Jobs wanted to purchase Bungie for himself.
Halo: Combat Evolved released in 2001 exclusively for Microsoft’s new Xbox console. Two years later, in 2003, it was eventually ported to PC and Mac, following on a promise that Ed Fries, former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, had made.
