Sounds weird. With my Air, In 22 I had 20-30 leagues loaded never really had any heat issues. Only heat issues was when I was testing stuff and leaving it on over night etc to holiday decades into the game.
Even laptops with a fan are going to get hot whilst gaming. So some heat is not bad. If its steaming hot for hours on end though that is a worry towards the longterm health of the laptop.
Makes me wonder if I have a different setting or something compared to you.
When I first got my air I did have heat issues when playing other more graphical heavy games, though over time I feel they patched and improved the performance of those games on the M1. So those issues stopped.