osxEQL

Run EverQuest Legends on Apple Silicon Macs with 100% open-source parts — open-source Wine (compiled from CodeWeavers' published LGPL source) + DXMT (DirectX 11 → Metal). No CrossOver install, no proprietary D3DMetal.

Unofficial, fan-made compatibility tool. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Daybreak Game Company, Game Jawn, CodeWeavers, or Apple. The EverQuest Legends game is not included — you bring your own copy from the official installer.

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Requirements

• Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer), macOS 13+.
• A Daybreak / EverQuest Legends account and the official EQLegends_setup.exe.
• ~10 GB free disk (the game client downloads through Daybreak's launcher).

Install (players)

1. Download osxEQL-<version>.dmg from the Releases page.

2. Open it and drag osxEQL into Applications.

3. First open: the app isn't signed by Apple, so macOS blocks it ("damaged" / "can't be opened"). Clear the quarantine flag once — open Terminal and run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/osxEQL.app

   After that it opens normally, every time.

4. Download EQLegends_setup.exe from the official EverQuest Legends site (you need a Daybreak account).

5. Launch osxEQL. A setup window walks the whole install: pick the installer when asked, then watch it run Daybreak's installer, update the launcher, and download the game — you get a chime when the login screen is ready. Log in, hit Play. Every launch after that goes straight to the launcher.

Nothing else to install: no Homebrew, no Xcode, no Wine — the runtime ships inside the app.

How it works

eqgame.exe is a 64-bit Direct3D 11 game. To run it on macOS you need (1) Wine to run the Windows binary and (2) a D3D11→Metal translator. osxEQL uses:

• Wine built from CodeWeavers' official LGPL CrossOver source — it has the macdrv_functions bridge DXMT needs to attach a Metal view (stock Wine doesn't).
• DXMT (github.com/3Shain/dxmt) for D3D11→Metal — the open-source alternative to Apple's proprietary D3DMetal.

The runtime (Wine + DXMT) is embedded in osxEQL.app; the wine prefix and the game client live in ~/Library/Application Support/osxEQL/. Deep technical notes are in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/JOURNEY.md.

Build from source (developers)

# 1. Compile the Wine runtime from CodeWeavers' LGPL source (~30-60 min, x86_64).
#    Needs Xcode CLT + Intel Homebrew. Stages to ~/…/osxEQL/Wine.cxbuild, then
#    verify DXMT render and swap into ~/…/osxEQL/Wine.
engine/build-wine.sh

# 2. Stage DXMT into that wine tree + create a prefix.
engine/osxeql backend dxmt

# 3. Build the app icon (needs `brew install librsvg`).
cd assets/icon && uv run python generate.py && \
  rsvg-convert -w 1024 -h 1024 icon.svg -o icon.png && bash build_icns.sh icon.png && cd ../..

# 4. Assemble the self-contained app + DMG.
packaging/build-app.sh        # -> dist/osxEQL.app  (embeds the runtime)
packaging/build-dmg.sh        # -> dist/osxEQL-<ver>.dmg

Prerequisites (building only — the release DMG needs none of this)

Since v0.2.1 packaging/build-app.sh bundles the Homebrew dylibs wine dlopens (freetype, gnutls, SDL2, …) into the app, so end users don't need Homebrew. Building from source does:

• x86_64 Homebrew (/usr/local/bin/brew).

  [!IMPORTANT] Wine is an x86_64 application and requires x86_64 libraries. The standard ARM64 Homebrew (/opt/homebrew/bin/brew) will install incompatible libraries that will cause Wine to instantly crash.

  To install the x86_64 version of Homebrew on an Apple Silicon Mac, run:

  arch -x86_64 /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

• Required Homebrew formulas (must be installed via arch -x86_64 /usr/local/bin/brew install <formula>):

  • bison mingw-w64 pkgconfig coreutils freetype gnutls molten-vk sdl2 vulkan-loader vulkan-headers libpcap

The engine/osxeql CLI (setup/install/import-client/play/backend/status/ doctor) is the headless equivalent of the app and is handy for development.

Project layout

app/            launcher.sh (the app entry point + first-run wizard) + Info.plist
assets/icon/    icon source (generate.py / icon.svg) + AppIcon.icns + build_icns.sh
engine/         headless CLI + numbered setup scripts + build-wine.sh
packaging/      build-app.sh, build-dmg.sh
docs/           ARCHITECTURE / STATUS / JOURNEY / VISION

The big artifacts — the 569 MB Wine runtime, the ~7 GB game client, the DMG — are not in git (see .gitignore); the runtime ships inside the Release DMG, the game client is the user's own.

License & credits

• osxEQL's own code: MIT (see LICENSE).
• Wine (LGPL-2.1) and DXMT (LGPL-2.1+) — see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md for license texts and how to obtain/rebuild the corresponding source.
• EverQuest Legends © Daybreak Game Company / Game Jawn. Not included, not affiliated.