Today during Microsoft’s 20th anniversary Xbox event, the company announced that 76 new games are being added to the Xbox backwards compatibility library, including the entire Max Payne franchise, F.E.A.R series, multiple Star Wars games, and more. Xbox also announced that some of these classics will support FPS boost and all of them will benefit from Auto HDR.
During today’s event, Peggy Lo, compatibility program lead at Xbox, announced that Microsoft was bringing more games to the Xbox backwards compatibility program. This is a bit of a surprise because in 2019 Xbox announced it had no further plans to expand the back compat library. However, it seems that continued community requests for some older games and the big 20th-anniversary celebration helped convince Microsoft to open the floodgates one more time.
Here’s the full list of games that you can now play on Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S:
- 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
- Aces of the Galaxy
- Advent Rising
- Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom
- Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Make the Grade
- Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth
- Bankshot Billiards 2
- Beautiful Katamari
- Binary Domain
- Black College Football Xperience: Doug Williams Ed
- Cloning Clyde
- Conan
- Darwinia+
- Dead or Alive Ultimate
- Dead or Alive 3
- Dead or Alive 4
- Death by Cube
- Disney Universe
- Disney’s Chicken Little
- Elements of Destruction
- F.E.A.R.
- F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
- F.E.A.R. 3
- F.E.A.R. Files
- The First Templar
- Gladius
- Gunvalkyrie
- Islands of Wakfu
- Lego The Lord of the Rings
- Manhunt
- Max Payne
- Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
- Max Payne 3
- Mini Ninjas
- Mortal Kombat
- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
- MX vs. ATV Alive
- MX vs. ATV Untamed
- NIER
- Novadrome
- Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee
- Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
- Otogi: Myth of Demons
- Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors
- The Outfit
- Outpost Kaloki X
- Quake Arena Arcade
- R.A.W. – Realms of Ancient War
- Red Dead Revolver
- Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
- Ridge Racer 6
- Rio
- Risen
- Risen 2: Dark Waters
- Rock of Ages
- Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
- Scramble
- Screwjumper!
- Secret Weapons Over Normandy
- Skate 2
- SpongeBob SquarePants Underpants Slam!
- SpongeBob’s Truth or Square
- Star Wars Starfighter: Special Edition
- Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars
- Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
- Switchball
- Thrillville
- Thrillville: Off the Rails
- Time Pilot
- TimeSplitters 2
- TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
- Toy Story Mania!
- Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment
- Viva Piñata: Party Animals
- Warlords
Some games from the list that caught my attention include all of the Max Payne series, Timesplitters and its sequel Future Perfect, 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand, Manhunt, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, and Skate 2. Sadly, at least as of now, you still can’t buy 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand via the old Xbox marketplace. But at least if you get a disc copy you can now play it on your Xbox Series X.
All of these games will support Auto HDR on Xbox Series X/S consoles and resolution boosts across all modern Xbox consoles, including Xbox One.
Also announced today, 37 classic Xbox and Xbox 360 games are getting FPS Boost support, including some older back compat titles like all of the previous Gears of War games on Xbox 360, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Fallout: New Vegas. And, interestingly, some of these games will support FPS Boost via cloud streaming. As always, Auto HDR and FPS Boost can be toggled on or off via the game’s compatibility settings in the Xbox dashboard. Here’s the full list of games getting FPS Boost support.
This huge dump of old games and the continued support of FPS Boost for older titles is yet another example of how Microsoft continues to run circles around Sony and Nintendo when it comes to supporting their back catalogue of games. While Nintendo continues to make it hard to revisit classic titles through above board means, Xbox is out here doing more to keep old games playable years and years after their release. And while they could of course do more, it’s still a nice change of pace compared to how most publishers and gaming companies handle retro games on older platforms.