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Halo Games On Xbox 360 Will Be Shut Down In January
In an effort to move toward the future, 343 Industries is shutting down servers for Halo games on the Xbox 360 in January. The developer announced in late 2020 that online support for Xbox 360 Halo games would be discontinued after December. Players will still be able to play the campaigns and other offline features on the system, but features like the service record in Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST will shut off.
Microsoft’s flagship title made its name on the original Xbox, but Halo 3 on Xbox 360 still lives in millions of players’ minds. Other legacy titles for the 360, like the original Star Wars Battlefront, have been shut down over the past few years. Shuttering older games is nothing new, as many game companies consolidate resources to support more modern games. EA is especially responsible for this, as games like Titantfall and Titanfall 2 have seen little to no support despite having sizable dedicated gaming communities.
In an updated blog post on Halowaypoint, 343 Industries announced that Halo games on Xbox 360 will go offline on January 13, 2022. This date is later than the originally announced December 2021 time frame that the studio revealed last year. The sunsetting, a term for shutting down content in online games, will affect seven different titles in the Halo franchise: Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, Halo 4, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo Spartan Assault, and Halo Wars. Local split-screen and co-op will still work with these titles, but online equivalents will not.
343 Industries is currently in development of Halo Infinite, which releases on December 8. It also continues to expand and develop the Halo: The Master Chief Collection that is now in its eighth season. Xbox 360 fans may be disappointed that the system is losing even more online support, but it should come as no surprise. The studio wants to focus on the future of Halo—with Halo Infinite at the helm. Online features are available in the Master Chief Collection version, with more content coming each season. Although, Microsoft may be less inclined to shut down servers on Xbox 360 due to its backward compatibility focus for the Xbox ecosystem.
Halo’s future is brighter than ever, with a new major entry in the franchise on the horizon and a TV show in development. However, it is hard to imagine being unable to jump into Halo 3 and play a game on the 360. Hopefully, 343 and Microsoft celebrate the end of online Halo on Xbox 360 that befits one of gaming’s most iconic times.
