Cuphead 1.3.3 DLC — Mac version

For the boss-rush fan

You play as a small cup with a big problem: a debt to the Devil. The whole game hangs on screen-filling boss battles, hand-drawn and inked onto watercolor backgrounds, with original jazz recordings rattling along underneath.

For the co-op player

Grab a mate for local two-player. You travel through off-kilter worlds, learn super moves, and figure out attack patterns together. The Delicious Last Course expansion adds a new island and more bosses to chip away at.

For the animation nut

Every frame is drawn by hand, and it shows. The 1930s cartoon style isn't just a filter — it's baked into the way characters squash, stretch, and explode across the screen.

No launcher, no menu bar clutter, no phoning home

Cuphead runs locally on your Intel Mac under macOS Catalina or later. There's no online check-in, no launcher, nothing phoning home. That means it doesn't clutter up your menu bar or leave a helper process running after you quit. If you're the sort who keeps a lean machine, you'll appreciate that.

It works fine alongside common screen-recording tools if you want to capture a boss fight. OBS and QuickTime Player both pick up the game window without fuss — you just need to switch from fullscreen to windowed mode in the game's video settings first. macOS's built-in screenshot shortcut (Cmd-Shift-5) also works, though a boss will probably flatten you while you're lining up the frame.

One thing worth knowing: Cuphead doesn't appear in your iCloud saved games. Progress lives in a local folder inside ~/Library/Application Support/. If you play on more than one Mac, you'll want to copy that folder across manually. For most people that's irrelevant — you'll park yourself on one machine and chip away at the debt over several evenings.

That split-second of invincibility from the dash move

The dash move. New players often forget they have it. Tap the dash button and you get a split-second of invincibility — enough to phase through a pink projectile or slide under a sweeping attack. Once that clicks, the whole game shifts from twitchy dodging to something more like a rhythm puzzle.

Parrying pink objects fills your super meter faster than shooting alone. A lot of people treat the parry as optional flair. It isn't. In boss fights where pink projectiles are everywhere, chaining two or three parries in a row gets you to a super art much quicker, and a well-timed super art can skip an entire attack phase.

Hold the lock button to stop moving while aiming. It sounds trivial, but on the plane levels — where everything scrolls and you're dodging constantly — planting your feet (wings?) and firing in one direction makes the difference between scraping through and losing a hit point to a stray cloud of bullets.

You can remap controls. The default layout works for most, but if you're on a compact keyboard or a third-party gamepad, spending two minutes in the options menu before you start a run saves a lot of fumbled inputs later.

A controller isn't required, but a cheap USB gamepad just works

Does this need a controller? It doesn't, but it helps. The keyboard controls are responsive and some players prefer them for the plane sections. A cheap USB gamepad works straight away on macOS — Cuphead recognises most standard pads without extra drivers. If you've got one in a drawer, use it. If not, you'll be fine on keys.

Is the DLC included? Version 1.3.3 bundles The Delicious Last Course, so Ms. Chalice and the extra island are there from the first launch. You don't need a separate download or a patch on top.

Can I play online with a friend? No — co-op is local only. Two players, same screen. Steam Remote Play can bridge that gap if you both have decent internet, but the game itself doesn't have online matchmaking or lobby menus. Treat it as couch co-op and you won't be disappointed.

How hard is it, honestly? Hard enough that you'll replay bosses. Not so hard that you need frame-perfect reflexes. Most fights last under two minutes once you know the pattern. The game is more about learning than about punishing execution — every death teaches you one more thing the boss does, and by the tenth attempt you're reading the fight instead of reacting to it.

Charging at a boss with only the default peashooter

Skipping the tutorial island. The run-and-gun levels on Inkwell Isle One aren't just warm-ups — they're where you earn coins for weapons and charms from Porkrind's shop. Charging straight at a boss with the default peashooter and no charm equipped is the quickest way to a frustrating first hour. Do a couple of platforming stages first, buy the Spread or the Chaser, and come back with a loadout that suits how you play.

Sticking to one weapon. Every boss has phases where a different shot type makes the fight much shorter. The Chaser is weak but homes in, which frees you up to focus entirely on dodging. The Spread shreds things up close. The Lobber arcs over obstacles. Swapping between them mid-fight — there's a button for that — turns some of the trickier encounters into much smoother runs.

Ignoring the audio cues. The jazz soundtrack isn't just atmosphere. Most bosses telegraph their next attack with a specific sound a beat before the visual tells you. Once you start listening for those cues, you stop eating hits from moves that seemed unfair the first time you saw them.

Treating it as a pure single-player grind when you have a friend available. Two players doubles the on-screen chaos, but it also means you can revive each other by parrying the other player's ghost. That mechanic alone makes co-op more forgiving than solo, even though the bosses gain extra health to compensate. If you're stuck on a particular fight, roping someone in for a session often unsticks you.

• DLC Fix

• macOS Catalina or newer
• Intel processor