Four Halo games now playable on Xbox One via backward compatibility
Return to the classics
Microsoft just made a major addition to the Xbox One’s backward compatibility library: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo 4 are now supported in the program, the company announced today.
Halo studio 343 Industries said in early July that support for these games was on the way. All four titles are already playable on Xbox One — Halo Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4were included in 2014’s Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and 343 released an upgraded version of Halo 3: ODST’s campaign on Xbox One in May 2015. (It was available free for some Master Chief Collection players as a make-good for the compilation’s botched launch.) The other Halo game that Bungie made, 2010’s Halo: Reach, has been backward compatible since December 2015.
In case you’re wondering why Halo 2: Anniversary is the odd man out in this group of backward-compatible games, here’s the thing: It was never released as a stand-alone game on Xbox 360. Halo 2 debuted in 2004 on the original Xbox, and its high-definition remaster is available only in The Master Chief Collection.
However, Halo 2 may become playable on Xbox One after Microsoft adds support for original Xbox games to the backward compatibility initiative. That feature is coming later this year, and it will work with disc copies of those titles.
