343 Industries has announced that it will be ending online services for all Halo titles released in the Xbox 360 era within the coming year. In total, seven different Halo games will be affected, but this doesn’t mean that players still won’t be able to play any of the titles in question moving forward.
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Detailed on the official Halo website, 343 has outlined its plan to sunset services for games like Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: Reach, and Halo Wars to name a few. Essentially, one year from now in December 2021, 343 will shut down all of the online portions of Halo games that were released for the 360. This means that if you were to try and find an online multiplayer match in any of these titles, you won’t be able to do so. The games themselves will still be playable on Xbox 360 or other compatible Xbox hardware, but the online components will no longer be functional across all platforms.
Halo Xbox 360 services are going offline in December 2021. Games remain playable indefinitely, but some experiences will be impacted.
Please visit https://t.co/9934rbtGdO for all the info. pic.twitter.com/11hEpzUrwE
— Halo (@Halo) December 18, 2020
343 explained that the reason why it is finally making this decision is because upkeeping 360 online services for various Halo games has taken up too much time. This is time that the studio says it would be better served pouring back into work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection or the forthcoming Halo Infinite.
Speaking of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the silver lining to this whole situation is that most of the games that are being shut down on 360 will still be available through this remastered collection. Halo: MCC still offers full online play for all of the games in its larger package meaning that if you’re looking to squad up with some pals and dive into some throwback Halo 3 multiplayer, you’ll be able to do so. This is true for all other games that don’t appear on The Master Chief Collection as well as they have since been ported from Xbox 360 to Xbox One.
Still, even if all of these games can still be easily played, it’s a bit melancholy to see this move being announced. Halo is arguably one of the most important games of all time when it comes to online multiplayer and the franchise really solidified that legacy on the Xbox 360. To see this now coming to an official end is equal parts strange and somewhat saddening.
So does this news have you feeling a bit upset as well, or do you not care in the slightest? Let me know down in the comments or hit me up over on Twitter at @MooreMan12 if you want to continue talking about all things Halo.
