This free, open-source tool for playing Windows games on Mac just bit the dust

There are a handful of ways to play Windows games on Mac, but one of the more popular options over the past few years has been Whisky. Also known as WhiskyWine, it leverages Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit (GPTK) and the Wine compatibility layer to make Windows games playable on macOS. Best of all, it’s free. Tools like CrossOver offer similar capabilities, but you’ll need to spend money upfront. Unfortunately, the solo developer behind Whisky is abandoning the project, as spotted by TechSpot.

Whisky is dead, dev says to buy CrossOver

It’s a lot of work for a solo dev

The developer of Whisky revealed that maintenance is ending via a notice in the app’s documentation. “Whisky was certainly a big undertaking, and will probably be the most widely used solo project of my life so I don’t take this decision lightly,” the developer wrote. “Running it is incredibly time-consuming, and as I’m still a student and also not being paid for work on Whisky, it becomes hard to justify working on it if I no longer enjoy it.”

Whisky served as a user-friendly frontend for Wine on macOS. Rather than setting up a virtual machine or going through the somewhat dense setup process for Wine on macOS, Whisky allowed you to quickly create a bottle (container) to run games and applications in. It’s very similar to CodeWeavers’ CrossOver, which also allows you to run games on macOS, and even with support for DirectX 12 titles. CrossOver is a paid utility, however, and according to Whisky’s developer, that made a major difference in its longevity.

“Whisky, in my opinion, has not been a positive on the Wine community as a whole… Whisky is based on CrossOver, but we don’t produce any bespoke fixes. As a result, the amount that Whisky as a whole contributes to Wine is practically zero. This is not a fair trade, and continuing this parasitic relationship could easily harm CrossOver’s continued profitability and the existence of Wine on Mac as a whole,” the developer wrote.

CrossOver has contributed over 90,000 patches to the various open-source projects it leverages, many of which have gone to Wine. CodeWeavers says that 95% of the Wine code base developed for CrossOver goes back into the open-source community, and given the tool’s $75 price tag, CodeWeavers is able to maintain a staff of developers that contribute to Wine as a whole. Whisky’s developer says users should pick up CrossOver instead, even going as far as to clarify that they “do not work for CodeWeavers.”

Whisky is still available, and if you’ve already downloaded it, you can continue using the app. It will no longer be maintained, however. The developer says there may be updates in the future if something “fundamentally breaks the main app,” but you shouldn’t count on it. Thankfully, there’s a 14-day free trial of CrossOver Mac, so you can download and try it out before committing.