You have about a year left to experience the online services for seven Halo titles, if you're still playing them on the Xbox 360, or through backwards compatibility. 343 has announced that after many years, and an ever-dwindling playerbase, it's time to "sunset" the servers for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo Wars, Spartan Assault, Halo: ODST, Halo 3, Halo 4, and Halo: Reach. By December 2021, anything involving online will no longer work, which means online matchmaking won't work, certain achievements will no longer be obtainable, filesharing, and other smaller features will be gone for good. Obviously, the singleplayer campaigns of each of the games will still be fully playable offline. This sunsetting also applies to the lineup, even if you're playing them on the Xbox One, or the Xbox Series X|S. Digital copies of all of these games have also been delisted, following the announcement. For those still interested in playing these games online, there's always The Master Chief Collection, or Halo Wars: Definitive Edition, which will both continue to be supported for a long time to come.

Source

 

[Kioku]

We need some sort of preservation law to stop things like this from happening, I'm not a Halo guy but the 360 players that are should be able to play it without modifications 10 years from now.

We need to make it clear the 3ds online is not to be shut down

You want to force the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, etc to keep paying for older game servers? Why?

 

[|<roni&g]

You want to force the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, etc to keep paying for game servers? Why?

^^what a suit would say.

Your sus

 

[AshuraZro]

Shutting down the multiplayer services for 360 Halo games isn't a big deal by itself but I start to question how far behind the Xbox Live 360 servers are from a turndown in the coming future. The Xbox 360 and PS3 generation has many games available digital only and, unless Microsoft commits to some slimmed down redownload only option, those games are potentially gone for good for some customers when that day comes. Steam has made this work for the most part (although I'm not totally up on whether games have been removed from being able to be redownload). I'm curious to see how it is handled by both platform holders when that time comes.

 

[MikaDubbz]

I hope this is only done to negate redundancy and funnel any remaining old school players to the Master Chief Collection. Because if this is a sign that more 360 games are to lose online support, that would really suck, especially since the Series X aims to be backward compatible with as much of the complete Xbox library as possible. But if you remove online support from the games in that library, then you lose playability with parts of the library. But I also get it, why keep paying for servers for games that next to no one is even playing anymore? I suppose there is no perfect answer, but one thing is for sure, we lost official DS and Wii online compatibility much too soon, and the soon demise of Super Mario Maker is a small tragedy.

 

[Kioku]

Shutting down the multiplayer services for 360 Halo games isn't a big deal by itself but I start to question how far behind the Xbox Live 360 servers are from a turndown in the coming future. The Xbox 360 and PS3 generation has many games available digital only and, unless Microsoft commits to some slimmed down redownload only option, those games are potentially gone for good for some customers when that day comes. Steam has made this work for the most part (although I'm not totally up on whether games have been removed from being able to be redownload). I'm curious to see how it is handled by both platform holders when that time comes.

It's entirely possible that they'll still allow downloads from the store. Shutting down the LIVE services wouldn't necessarily mean that you'll lose access to your games. The store and LIVE services are presumably on two separate servers.

 

[AshuraZro]

It's entirely possible that they'll still allow downloads from the store. Shutting down the LIVE services wouldn't necessarily mean that you'll lose access to your games. The store and LIVE services are presumably on two separate servers.

Assuming I mean services more than actual servers. In reality, Xbox Live is likely comprised of a great many compartmentalized components. That said though, we are talking about services that started on that generation in 2005 with a very different Microsoft and acceptable operational landscape versus today. It'd be insane to see what that legacy would look like versus the current Xbox One style services.

 

[campbell0505]

We need some sort of preservation law to stop things like this from happening, I'm not a Halo guy but the 360 players that are should be able to play it without modifications 10 years from now.

We need to make it clear the 3ds online is not to be shut down

But what would they gain from keeping up servers for games from 2 console generations ago, that not many people use now? Imo they supported them longer than they could've, and while it kinda sucks, you can still play them on the collection.

A law like that would never pass "Hey Microsoft, you know that game you released 20 years ago with online features, well you need to keep it up, even though hardly anyone uses it and you don't gain anything from it.

3ds online will be shut down eventually, maybe 2025 at the earliest imo. But the 3ds is homebrewed to shit and I think it'll be wiimfi for the 3ds.

 

[gnmmarechal]

We need some sort of preservation law to stop things like this from happening, I'm not a Halo guy but the 360 players that are should be able to play it without modifications 10 years from now.

We need to make it clear the 3ds online is not to be shut down

huh? And who's going to pay for the servers of really old games nobody plays to stay up? You?

 

[raxadian]

We need some sort of preservation law to stop things like this from happening, I'm not a Halo guy but the 360 players that are should be able to play it without modifications 10 years from now.

We need to make it clear the 3ds online is not to be shut down

The game has been ported to newer systems.

People who have the Xbox One and the Windows 10 version can still play it online.

In this case, I think is unfair to demand for the old version to still work online when is not giving Microsoft any money and the newer versions will continue to work online.

Yes you need to own Halo: The Master Chief Collection but is three games in a bundle, has updated graphics and sound and Microsoft FINALLY released it for Windows 10.

 

[PatrickD85]

Well as long as back compat works im good, still have to look into all of this seeing as the Series X is my first ever Xbox.

 

[Bladexdsl]

they want to be like nintendo

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Wasn't there a team of diehard HALO fans who stubbornly remained online, postponing the shutdown of an old game's multiplayer by a couple days or so until they were all kicked?
I seem to remember something like that; I wonder if that will happen again...

 

[DinohScene]

Hm, time to get some online achievements next year.

 

[Pipistrele]

We need some sort of preservation law to stop things like this from happening, I'm not a Halo guy but the 360 players that are should be able to play it without modifications 10 years from now.

We need to make it clear the 3ds online is not to be shut down

Sounds like a cool idea in a perfect world, but who's going to pay for it? Keeping servers afloat costs money, and if we're going to maintain online multiplayer for every dated 360/PS3/Wii/etc. game on a native level, that's going to be a huge expense for barely any actual purpose other that "it's preservation-friendly".

As for more logical solution, it would be neat to offer tools for players to make their own servers once the game is dead, but that may be hard for games fully designed around company-dependent servers.

 

[InsaneNutter]

This will certainly be an end of an era. Back when I was in Uni we 4 player co-op'd Halo 3, ODST and Reach via system link and played loads of Xbox Live multiplayer.

Reach actually came out a few days before our Xbox 360 lan party team parted ways for the final time. Looking at my achievement dates we smashed legendary co-op on 18/09/2010 and I think one of my friends who i'd played by far the most 360 with moved home to the other end of the country on the 19th if I remember correctly.

We also did the same for Gears 1-3 and various other games also, certainly had some of my best gaming memories with Halo on the 360. The Xbox One was never the same.

Hm, time to get some online achievements next year.

Must admit I was thinking that also, however I've got one achievement since 2010 on Reach, so i've probably got all i'll ever got on the game.

 

[greasehoot]

I bought a 360 specifically for Halo 3. When I saw the multiplayer improvements I knew we were entering a new era of online gaming. I am happy to have been a part of it.

 

[mat128]

Matchmaking and leaderboards are shutting down but custom games and online co-op will continue to work. But with MCC being available on Xbox One / PC for cheap and undergoing heavy development with new features being added often you should probably play that for your Halo fix.

 

[Jokey_Carrot]

why

 

[MikaDubbz]

Yes you need to own Halo: The Master Chief Collection but is three games in a bundle, has updated graphics and sound and Microsoft FINALLY released it for Windows 10.

Isn't Master Chief Collection 6 games? 1, 2, 3, 3: ODST, Reach, and 4?

 

[raxadian]

Isn't Master Chief Collection 5 games? 1, 2, 3, Reach, and 3: ODST?

It usd to be three games but games keep getting added to it.

Currently is Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4,