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The original Xbox 360 versions of Halo will lose online support in January

343 Industries developers are “wholly focused” on Halo’s future with current platforms

Master Chief looking out onto a sunset Image: Bungie/Microsoft Game Studios
Ana Diaz (she/her) is a culture writer at Polygon, covering internet culture, fandom, and video games. Her work has previously appeared at NPR, Wired, and The Verge.

Well, the time has come for Cortana to cease communications. At least with the original Halo games for the Xbox 360 games that is.

Monday, developers at 343 Industries updated an earlier blog post to specify when online functionality for the original games will end. The Halo Xbox 360 legacy services will be turned off on Jan. 13, 2022 according to the post. The date comes after an announcement, made nearly a year ago, outlining the developers’ plan to gradually phase out services for the older games.

The service impacts following Xbox 360 titles: Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Spartan Assault, and Halo Wars. Players who own these titles will still be able to play them, but some “experiences and functionality will be reduced or removed,” the blog said.

Players can check out the old post to get a full chart that breaks down what services are and aren’t impacted by the closure by title. Note: The versions of these games in Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox and Windows PC are unaffected; those have all been rebuilt and remastered to use different modernized services.

Last year, the blog explained that maintaining these services requires “significant time and resources,” which then impacts the studio’s ability to support current and new games like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite, which launches in December.

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