To celebrate its 30th Anniversary, a new modification for original Quake has been added for free to the Steam version: «Dawn of the Machine» from MachineGames.

Let’s look at how to play it natively on Mac.

So far I spent more time figuring out how to get the Dawn of the Machine extension running natively with Mac Quake, than actually playing it. Let me spare you from this journey!

Here’s how to play Quake Dawn of the Machine (DOTM) on macOS

The requirements are: download the Quake Steam version to macOS, add a Mac Quake game app to it, and add a localisation file into the right place.

Ultimately, we want the following Quake folder structure:

/quake # <- Steam Quake installation
├── _CommonRedist
├── build.vdf
├── …
├── id1/
├── localization/
│   └── loc_english.txt # <- Localizations
├── …
├── rerelease/
│   ├── …
│   ├── mg3/ # <- Dawn of the Machine
├── …
├── quake.exe
├── QuakeSpasm.app # <- Mac Quake app
├── …

Download the newest Quake game version from Steam

Because Quake on Steam is only published as a Windows game, we’ll use this neat workaround to download any Steam games to macOS: via the steamcmd Command-Line app.

Pre-requisite: install steamcmd on macOS using homebrew – if you haven’t yet

  1. Make sure that homebrew is installed.
  2. Open the «Terminal.app» and run this command:
    brew install --cask steamcmd
  3. Now type this in the Terminal window, to run it for the very first time:
    steamcmd
  4. macOS Gatekeeper will complain & the steamcmd CLI will crash. Don’t worry!
  5. Open the macOS «System Settings» & navigate to Privacy & Security » Security section (in the very bottom).
  6. Click on the «Allow anyway» next to the App entry «Breakpad.framework»

Download Steam Quake version to your Mac using steamcmd

Before running below command, note that the following values must be adjusted:

  • {steamUSER} → the Steam username to log-in with
  • {steamPASSWORD} → the password to log-in alongside the {steam-user}
  • /path/to/install/quake → the desired place where the Steam Game should be installed to.

Using now the steamcmd CLI app, the download on macOS can be achieved using the following command in «Terminal.app»:

steamcmd +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows \
+app_update 2310 validate \
+login steamUSER steamPASSWORD \
+force_install_dir "/path/to/install/quake"

If you have 2-factor / SteamGuard enabled, you will be asked to enter the 2FA-Code into the Terminal window at some point.

Once the command ran successfully, you should have the whole Quake game extracted at the folder path you specified!

Add the Mac-version of QuakeSpasm to the Steam Quake folder

Next, the macOS-native Quake game app is needed:

  1. Open the Quake game webpage on Mac Source Ports.
  2. From that page, download the «QuakeSpasm» Mac App.
  3. Extract the downloaded image & move the «QuakeSpasm.app» into the previously installed Steam Quake folder
    (at "/path/to/install/quake"). It must be right alongside the /id1 folder.

Obtain and configure additional files for Dawn of the Machine

There’s something wrong with either the Steam Quake version – or how DOTM uses localizable text strings.

To fix that, we need to have a correctly named file in a localization folder, so it’s properly picked up by QuakeSpasm (and other Mac Quake apps) – and its location on macOS is different to Windows, as I happened to find out.

  1. Download the file loc_english.txt file from my Gist here:
    https://gist.github.com/Swiss-Mac-User/949ef7186a30c4d09c22af0dbe3cdbc2
  2. Go into the Steam Quake folder, and the inside the /rerelease folder.
  3. Here, create a new folder named «localization»
  4. Place the loc_english.txt file inside the new /rerelease/localization folder.

🕹️ Finally: Play time!

The steps to launch «Dawn of the machine» (mg3) are now rather simple:

Launch QuakeSpasm.app and copy-paste the following «Command Line Parameters»:

-basedir ./rerelease -game mg3

Note: if you want to have a more proper setup, sparing you from using these CLPs going forward, see the additional remarks further below in this article.

Now just start a «New Game» and you’ll teleport into «Dawn of the machine»!

NOTE: Don’t be confused from the default Quake Demo playing – the game context will be correct on the DOTM expansion.

Note on other Mac Quake Apps and ways to play the Quake Steam-version

Enable QuakeSpasm «Mods» selection, making Command Line Parameters obsolete

If you are annoyed at (re-)using the «Command Line Parameters» with QuakeSpasm to play Dawn of the Machine, you need the following changes within the downloaded Quake Steam folder:

  • Copy the 2 folders /rerelease/mg3/ and /rerelease/localization/ directly up into the root Quake folder, alongside /id1 and QuakeSpasm.app
  • Now you can just launch QuakeSpasm without CLPs, and then use the in-game menu «Mods» and select «mg3» to switch the game into the Dawn of the Machine expansion.

Quake Steam version using CrossOver for Mac

This would be of course the easiest to play Quake’s «Dawn of the Machine» on Mac. But it requires to purchase, aside of the Quake game, also CrossOver itself – or is limited a 14 days trial.

Mac vkQuake

As of the time of writing, Mac vkQuake does not support the new Monster Models of DOTM, but it can run it when launching it using the following parameters:

  1. Open Terminal.app and cd into the vkQuake Mac App Bundle
    cd /path/to/vkQuake.app/Content/MacOS/
  2. Then launch the vkquake binary with additional command line parameters:
vkquake rerelease-2026 +r_enhancedmodels 0 +r_allow_replacement_md5models 0 -game mg3 -basedir /path/to/quake/rerelease/

Mac Dark Places

I didn’t test this one per the time of writing.

Sources used

Kudos to the following posts and articles.

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