Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

No screen’s too small for ‘Doom’: Classic game now playable on MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar

Doom on the MacBook Pro Touch Bar
The MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar has been officially co-opted by video game fanatics, with a port of id Software’s classic first-person shooter Doom now playable within the tiny confines of Apple’s miniature touchscreen display.

Even when running at an ultra-widescreen resolution of 2170 x 60, Doom should be fully playable for fans familiar with the classic game’s initial selection of maps, though later levels and higher difficulty settings will prove to be a challenge even for veterans with decades of experience.

Porting Doom to unconventional and impractical hardware has become a tradition among longtime series fans, and over the past several years, enterprising hobbyist developers have gotten ports up and running on everything from inkjet printers to truck-mounted billboards to ATMs.

The MacBook Pro isn’t the first Apple product to get unofficial Doom support, as recent porting initiatives produced playable versions for the Apple Watch and the Apple TV.

Gaming consoles are another point of focus for the Doom hacking community, and odds are good that if you own any piece of technology with a screen, it can probably run Doom. The iconic game has appeared on platforms as recent as the Nintendo 3DS, and even Commodore 64 fans can get a taste of the action with a scaled-back 8-bit port.

Other recent Doom sightings are downright bizarre, if not entirely inappropriate. The kid-friendly Leapfrog educational handheld can transform into id’s bloody first-person shooter with a simple hack, and if you’ve ever wanted to play Doom while on a cross-country flight, certain forms of in-flight entertainment may have you covered.

A comprehensive list of all hardware and technology that has been modified to run Doom is chronicled at the fan-curated Tumblr It Runs Doom.

Editors' Recommendations

Danny Cowan
Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…
Why gaming on the M3 MacBook Air has left me impressed
Baldur's Gate 3 being played on the M3 MacBook Air.

Upon getting the new MacBook Air M3 in my possession, I had one major question: Can you play games on it?

That might sound like a silly first thought for a laptop of this type. After all, it's not marketed as a gaming laptop -- it's an incredibly thin, fanless laptop. Not exactly something even meant for any high-performance tasks.

Read more
Why this gaming laptop is the MacBook Pro’s biggest competition
An OLED HDR demo running on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14.

There's no other laptop quite like the MacBook Pro right now.

In particular, I'm talking about the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Max under the hood. The way this laptop balances performance and portability just hasn't been seen before.

Read more
Another excellent laptop challenges the MacBook Pro and falls short
The keyboard and trackpad of the MacBook Pro.

The MacBook Pro 16 remains undefeated as the best 16-inch laptop you can buy. From the incredible battery life to the impressive performance, the M3 Max MacBook Pro has become an unstoppable force.

Still, plenty of competitors have come along to potentially challenge it, and when I came across the updated HP Spectre x360 16, I wondered if it might make a worthy rival. As impressive as it is, though, it still doesn't have what it takes to dethrone the MacBook Pro.
Specs and configurations

Read more