It’s the end of an era as Microsoft’s just announced that they’re ending the Backwards Compatibility program for the Xbox One.

Yeah, this is the kind of E3 surprise you DON’T want to hear.

After all, there are still TONS of awesome Xbox 360 games that are still not playable via BC. Phantasy Star Universe and P4 Arena Ultimax for one.

Alas, perhaps in an alternate universe we might have them on the list but in this one, unless you have an Xbox 360 lying around, they’re gone for good. It looks like we’re all going to have to make do with the games that are on the current list.

Here’s the official announcement.

Here are the final games to make the cut.

Original Xbox

Xbox 360

Existing BC Titles to be Xbox One X Enhanced

There is a silver lining in all of this; Microsoft’s ending the program with a bang. All of the missing Splinter Cell games are now on the BC list, as are Asura’s Wrath and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD (a personal favourite).

Even Rare’s games get some love, with a lot of them getting patches to make them enhanced on the Xbox One X. Since we’ve just decided to resume playing Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, this comes at the perfect time!

Too Human’s also being given away free for the time being, so if you don’t have it, you might want to nab it soon.

So what will the team behind the backwards compatibility be working on?

The same thing…except this time it’ll be for Project Scarlett.

Here’s hoping they manage to do the same thing they’ve done here (improving legacy games on new consoles) with the Xbox One games.

We’d love to play every Xbox One game on Project Scarlett but with enhanced graphics and higher framerates! If anybody can make it so, it’ll be this team.

For the full list of Xbox titles that are backwards compatible, you’ll want to head on over to the Xbox’s official website. They have all the titles listed and you can even sort them in categories.

Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.