Halo: Reach is one of the highest regarded games of the Halo franchise; taking players through a story of multiple spartans before the start of the 2001 title, Halo: Combat Evolved. When Microsoft announced backwards compatibility Reach was seen at the forefront of their advertising for it with the game case prominently displayed as one of the first titles to be available.
While Reach wasn’t one of the first titles, Xbox One owners and Halo fans were certainly excited that the game was still to come in the subsequent set of titles released through backwards compatibility.
Unfortunately for those fans, Halo: Reach has been an abject disappointment with borderline unplayable framerate issues and buggy physics all wrapped up in a package that only matches the graphical capability of the splitscreen mode of the original Halo: Reach.
The complaints of gamers have reached Microsoft and they “are aware some users are experiencing issues.” Microsoft claims the Xbox team is working on a fix, but no timeline has been given.
Backwards compatbility may very well have been the feature that won Microsoft E3 2015, and after a long five months the promises that they made are finally coming to fruition.
Xbox Live’s Major Nelson and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed exactly which Xbox 360 will be available on the Xbox One November 12.
“At Xbox, we believe that gaming is universal and should be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. Our philosophy since launching Xbox One two years ago has been to put gamers at the center of everything we do and create the best, most seamless gaming experience possible.” – Mike Ybarra and Larry Hryb
104 games — mostly first party games — will be part of the initial launch. The majority of the games are not particularly major titles or among the top titles that gamers were clamoring for in the Xbox Live uservoice community reach-out initiative by Microsoft.
Instead the biggest name titles include Just Cause 2, Fable II, Fallout 3, Mirror’s Edge, Super Meat Boy, and all of the Gears of War games. There is an extensive collection of Xbox Live arcade games as well.
While the selection isn’t particularly bad, there are still many gamers that are reasonably disappointed that even Halo: Reach will still be a ways away. Reach, Halo Wars, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite and Skate 3 are among the big name games that are “on the way.”
Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Red Dead Redemption, and Skyrim were the top three requested titles and nothing was mentioned regarding future compatibility with these titles. It’s certainly possible that Microsoft simply has been given the go-ahead from Bethesda or Rockstar to release their games again through backwards compatibility.
Still, backwards compatibility is here, and it’s a major bonus for the console struggling to compete with the PS4 in European and Asian markets. Microsoft is continuing to re-invent it’s image and inticing previous-gen gamers with a few more games with the added media features of the Xbox One (game streaming, screenshots, game DVR) can’t hurt.
What most considered was the biggest deciding factor in the winner of E3, backwards compatibility of 100+ Xbox 360 games to the Xbox One is finally nearing a full release.
While preview members have been benefited to seeing it over the last few months, the amount of games has been fairly slim, but games like Mirror’s Edge, Burnout Paradise and Halo: Reach will be some of the new titles that preview members have yet to revisit through backwards compatibility.
It was revealed by Phil Spencer at the Halo 5 launch event that November 12 would be the official day that all Xbox One gamers would get access to their old Xbox 360 games.
Xbox fans mark your calendars: @XboxP3 just revealed new Xbox One experience & back compat start launching Nov. 12 for all Xbox One owners
The current top Xbox 360 games requested for backwards compatibility on Xbox Uservoice.
The exact list of which games are coming has yet to be revealed, but Microsoft has been asking fans through their Xbox Uservoice system which games they would like most. The Xbox team simply waits for the go-ahead from developers and then ports the game through an Xbox 360 emulator.
Games like Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and more are potential titles on the way. However, Microsoft will be primarily focusing on their own first party games and IPs.
Halo: Reach was Bungie’s last game before turning the franchise over to 343i.
The story of Noble Six and “the rookie” is now available for free on the Xbox 360 for Xbox Live Gold members.
It’s been four years since the release of Halo: Reach and Bungie’s last take on the Halo universe, and Microsoft is giving all Xbox 360 owners who have elected to forgo picking up the title a very good reason to try it out now with their September Games with Gold promotion.
Reach was the first of the Halo series to truly open up character customization where your own stylized player takes center-stage in both the single player campaign and the multiplayer.
For those not familiar with the Halo franchise, this will be a good time to pick up the FPS as Halo: Reach is one of the only Halo’s (besides Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars) that diverts from the core story of Master Chief, a super solider “Spartan”, and Cortana, his artificial-intelligence assistant. For those interested in following the story of Spartan 117, The Master Chief Collection will be releasing in two months (November 11th) and will be covering all of Masterchief and Cortana’s story.
Check out Halo: Reach on the Xbox Live marketplace on the Xbox 360 or head on over to marketplace.xbox.com to download the game instantly to your console.