Backwards compatibility remains a key part of Xbox’s strategy as it has begun to re-release retro games on PC and plans to incorporate achievements too.
If there’s one advantage Xbox has over PlayStation, it’s that it is far more vocal about supporting backwards compatibility, ensuring many older Xbox games remain playable on newer hardware.
It’s been heavily implied this will continue for Project Helix, even though the company laid off the guy responsible for leading Xbox’s backwards compatibility team.
And if you needed further proof of this commitment, Xbox has now announced that it’s begun making games from the original Xbox console playable on PC, with an admittedly small starting line-up.
The first four games are Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live And Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, and Fuzion Frenzy; all of which are already playable via Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
The Xbox Wire announcement confirms that if you own any of these games on Xbox (or rather the digital licence for them), then you can play them on PC as well at no extra cost.
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This initiative means these games are now playable on PC handhelds such as the ROG Xbox Ally too. Xbox is also promising new features like customisable graphics settings and retroactively adding Achievements.
‘Your library is more than just a collection of games. It is your personal history of epic stories and treasured memories from the past,’ reads the announcement from Jason Ronald, vice president of next generation.
‘And as players, we don’t want to leave our gaming legacy behind even as technology continues to evolve and advance. We expect our library of games to move forward with us and to be able to play them in entirely new ways.’
That last line is another piece of evidence pointing to Project Helix supporting all the Xbox games you own, no matter how old they are, as it’s widely assumed to be more of a PC in a console shell, especially since it’s already confirmed to be capable of running PC games.
On one hand, it’s good to see Xbox taking further steps to preserve its older catalogue, although that starting line-up does highlight how the original Xbox had barely any quality exclusives. How much nostalgia is really there for something like Blinx or Fuzion Frenzy?
Presumably, the line-up will be bolstered with third party games too, although ironically this gives people another reason not to invest in Project Helix when it comes out. If both new and old Xbox games can be accessed on your PC, why put money down for a brand new console that’s expected to be obscenely expensive?
Furthermore, while these plans have obviously been brewing for some time, the announcement comes not even a month after a devastating wave of layoffs across Xbox, with several studios gutted and over 1,000 people still yet to be impacted.
As such, Xbox’s reputation is worse than ever, with recent announcements of new Fallout remasters and a new Fallout game from Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment clear attempts at damage control.
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