Play Classic Doom on a Mac
Fortunately for us, GZDoom1 (official site), a “3D-accelerated Doom source port based on ZDoom2”, has our backs. It enables us to play the game as long as we can extract the WAD file from the Doom .exe file for Windows.
If getting from zero to fighting demon hordes on macOS was a straightforward course of action, there would be no need for this blog post. But, it’s a bit of an involved process, so here is the missing manual to get you up and running.
I currently use an Intel-based Macbook Pro running macOS Monterey, so that is what the following guide has been tested on. The process should still hopefully work for Apple Silicon-based Macs and/or other macOS versions, but your mileage may vary.
However, since you are going to have to get comfortable with using the Terminal application during this guide, I would suggest using this installation as the first opportunity to try it out (assuming you are not already comfortable, and have your own terminal emulator of choice).
You are going to need to get Homebrew, a package manager for macOS. Go to the Homebrew homepage, copy the installation command, open up your terminal, paste the command, and press enter.
