Matt Firor, ZOS’s Studio Director, has taken to the official site of MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online to address how the team will be changing the way they support the game on Macs moving forward.
Last summer Apple revealed that new Macs will no longer be using Intel CPUs and will instead utilize a new ARM CPU going forward. As such, these new ARM-based Macs cannot run software created for Intel-based computers. Additionally, these new machines will not support Boot Camp either, so you cannot dual boot an ARM-based Mac into Windows.
All of the above puts a burden on ZOS’s software developers, requiring a huge undertaking of porting a product as large and old as ESO to a new CPU. Due to these factors, the team will not be porting ESO to run on the new ARM-based Macs.
“If you purchase a new ARM-based Mac, you will still have some options to play ESO. The most obvious one is that you can log into your account from any PC (or Intel-based Mac) and still be able to play with all of your account and character data. You also have the option of playing (with your current account and characters) on Stadia, a cloud-streaming service that uses the same servers as your current Mac-based accounts—so if you do use Stadia, you can continue to play uninterrupted with your existing account and character data.”
Check out the official site to find the full text of the open letter.