Perhaps you've watched Shawn's recent Fallen Earth exploits in Choose My Adventure, or heard all about the post-apocalyptic fun on Massively Speaking. Well, the team at Icarus Studios have heard the call from the Apple-loving contingent for a client of their own -- and have just announced that they have a beta Mac-compatible client ready for you to download and try out!
The new client is made possible thanks to the open-source project, Wine, which helps to create cross-compatibility for different platforms. The Fallen Earth Mac beta client works on Intel Macs, and is optimized for systems running under OS X 10.5 Leopard or later that have dedicated graphics hardware. No word on a Linux client at this time, but a connection with Wine is certainly a very positive first step if they do choose to open up further cross-compatibility to Linux users in the future.
"The Mac OS X compatibility project is something we've been excited to see implemented for quite a while," said Brad Lineberger, Chief Technical Officer of Icarus Studios. "Our goal for the project is to allow Mac users to run all of our existing and future games in their native OS." All you have to do if you'd like to get in on the Mac beta is to head over to the Fallen Earth site and check out their beta FAQ page. Of course, you have to have an active Fallen Earth account, or sign up for a 10-day trial first, but for post-apocalyptic loving Mac fans, this is certainly some great news.
Reader Comments (11)
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 2:18PM Dufrane said
Might give this game a shot just for that. Now, if only Turbine would make a Mac client for LOTRO!
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 3:08PM Firebreak said
I did not see this coming, way to go.
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 3:15PM Randomessa said
Fantastic news - Icarus Studios is hitting all the right notes and other developers should be taking notes.
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 3:36PM eNTi said
it certainly is no positive sign for linux gaming if developers use wine instead of writing platform independend / native code.
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 10:44PM Lateris said
I have so much respect for this company. I wish they would make a space mmorpg.
Posted: Mar 10th 2010 11:33PM agitatedandroid said
This news is just.. unexpected.
Icarus Studios really is one of the most impressive developers I've seen in some time. As others have mentioned, it's a shame that Turbine can't manage what this little studio has done.
Icarus Studios really is one of the most impressive developers I've seen in some time. As others have mentioned, it's a shame that Turbine can't manage what this little studio has done.
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 8:12AM (Unverified) said
As a Mac user who hates using the XP side of the machine (and I have such a small partition there anyway), this is always good news.
This was a game that never really interested me as a Windows side game, but if they have a Mac client, i will try the game.
This was a game that never really interested me as a Windows side game, but if they have a Mac client, i will try the game.
Posted: Mar 11th 2010 5:35PM Addfwyn said
Very unexpected, but as an avid mac user, this is the kind of thing that will get me to give it another shot and subscribe to it. Always happy to encourage mac development.
Posted: Mar 12th 2010 1:13PM MrMichael said
So wait, they did a mac client but it is actually not a real client it is an emulated windows client running under wine and released as an installable package? Uhh yeah like that won't have problems.
Posted: Mar 12th 2010 5:11PM (Unverified) said
You are, in fact, not releasing a Mac client, and it's disingenuous to put out a press release claiming that you are. What you ARE doing is tossing a hobbled copy of your Windows-only game onto OS X, and helping to undermine what little legitimate Mac game development there still is.







