Bad news coming for fans of Halo, and above all for the owners of Xbox 360. 343 Industries announced in the past few hours the intention to cease support for the online services of the entire franchise on the previously mentioned console, by December 2021. As can be seen from the official tweet, which you can easily retrieve at the bottom of the article, games will remain playable for a limited time, although some in-game experiences may be affected. We report in detail the reasons that led the US software house to suspend online services:
To date, we've managed forward-looking work and priorities, with ongoing maintenance of Halo's legacy services for Xbox 360. Maintaining these services today requires significant time and resources that directly impact the studio's ability to support current projects and future such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite.
Our teams must continually evaluate needs against available resources (time, people, skills, etc.) and prioritize the areas and opportunities that produce the greatest impact. To that end, today we announce our intention to abandon our legacy Halo services on Xbox 360 to fully focus on the future of the franchise. In about ONE YEAR, December 2021, online services will be discontinued. Owners of these titles will still be able to play these games indefinitely, however, some online features and experiences, especially online matchmaking, will be limited or disabled.
Furthermore, the guys from 343 Industries have specified in the very long press release that they are intentionally moving slowly and with a multiphase approach precisely to provide their users with ample notice and that there will be updates on the matter in the coming months. The news comes in the same week that the development team has finally completed the passage of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection from console to PC, transferring the entire brand to a single platform for the first time. For the uninitiated, the collection includes all Xbox 360 games dedicated to John-117 except two, namely Halo Wars and Halo: Spartan Assault.
Halo's Xbox 360 services will go offline in December 2021. Games will remain playable indefinitely, but some experiences will suffer.
Please visit http://aka.ms/Halo360 for all the info.
Halo Xbox 360 services are going offline in December 2021. Games remain playable indefinitely, but some experiences will be impacted.
Please visit https://t.co/9934rbtGdO for all the info. pic.twitter.com/11hEpzUrwE
- Halo (@Halo) December 18, 2020
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