Free Apple Silicon Online with Mac players

Command & Conquer: Generals — Zero Hour, now on your Mac

A free, fan-made port that runs the classic strategy game natively on Macs with Apple chips. No Windows, no emulator: install the launcher and play the campaign, fight bots, add mods and battle other Mac players online.

Get the game — install guide ▶ 5-minute video
The Zero Hour main menu running in a macOS window

What you get

🎖Campaign and skirmish

Both Zero Hour and the original Generals: story missions, battles against bots and saved games.

🌐Online battles

Play on the Generals Online service. Games hosted on a Mac are marked, so Mac players find each other easily.

🧩Mods in one click

Popular community mods install and update right from the launcher, each kept separate from the main game.

⚡Made for Apple chips

Graphics go straight through Metal, Apple's own technology, with no translation layer in between. The app itself weighs only a few megabytes.

🎮Steam download built in

Sign in with Steam and the launcher fetches the game files for you — no Windows PC needed at any step.

🆓Free and open

The port costs nothing. Its source code is public and builds on the game code that EA released to the community.

What you need

  1. A Mac with an Apple chip — M1 or newer — and macOS 13 Ventura or later.
  2. Your own copy of the game. The easiest way is Command & Conquer: Generals — Zero Hour on Steam; the launcher downloads it for you. An old disc or a copy from a Windows PC works too.
  3. The launcher. Download it and follow the step-by-step guide — in 12 languages, with answers to common questions.

Screenshots

The launcher with a mod installed, the game tabs and camera settings
The launcher: games, mods and settings.
The launcher downloading game files through Steam
Game files arrive through Steam.
The mod info panel with the authors and their links
Every mod credits its authors.
Building a GLA base in classic Generals
Classic Generals: building a GLA base.
A fight breaking out at a GLA base
Things heat up at the base.
A GLA base with the general's powers panel open
The general's powers, ready to strike.

Friends on Windows?

Not yet — for now Mac players play online with other Mac players. In Generals every computer calculates the whole battle on its own, and a Mac and a Windows PC round numbers very slightly differently. Within seconds the two players would be watching two different battles.

The fix is built and has been tested in hours-long Mac-and-Windows games. It is now being reviewed by the Windows community, because it touches the heart of the game. Follow the progress here, or read the longer explanation.

How it started

In early 2026 I wanted something simple: to play Generals online with friends — from my Mac. There was no Mac version, so I decided to build one. I was an app developer, not a game programmer, and the last time I had written C++ was at school.

The first month went into getting the game to draw anything at all through Metal. Then came the menus, the sound, the launcher and online play — and one complete restart from scratch along the way, once I understood which road actually leads online.

The biggest surprise came last: Macs and Windows PCs do math very slightly differently, and in a strategy game that is enough to split one battle into two. Fixing that grew into a project of its own, now shared with the whole Generals community, so that one day everyone can play together.

— okji, author of the Mac port

Join in

💬Telegram chatFind Mac players and ask questions 🎧DiscordThe same community, on Discord 📣News channelUpdates and release notes ▶️YouTubeInstall guide and gameplay videos 💻Source codeFor developers: how the port is built ❤️Support the developerHelps toward an official Apple certificate