Xbox Series S Backwards Compatibility: Play Your Favorite Classic Games

If you're wondering which original Xbox and Xbox 360 games are playable on Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S, you're in the right place! Backward compatibility means you can play select Original Xbox and Xbox 360 games on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S-without needing your old console. Backward compatibility keeps gaming history alive, letting you relive iconic Xbox moments on modern hardware.

The Xbox Series X/S was released in 2020 and was confirmed to be backwards compatible with the same list of games as the Xbox One at launch.

As of April 2024, Microsoft unveiled they are assembling a new team focused on backwards compatibility and game preservation which might add even more games to the list. Xbox boss, Sarah Bond, stated: "We have formed a new team dedicated to game preservation, important to all of us at Xbox and the industry itself.

Want to see if your favorite game works on Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S?

Here's how backward compatibility works and what enhancements you can expect on the Xbox Series S.

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Backward Compatibility on Xbox: A History

The Xbox One gaming console has received updates from Microsoft since its launch in 2013 that enable it to play select games from its two predecessor consoles, Xbox and Xbox 360. On June 15, 2015, backward compatibility with supported Xbox 360 games became available to eligible Xbox Preview program users with a beta update to the Xbox One system software. The dashboard update containing backward compatibility was released publicly on November 12, 2015. On October 24, 2017, another such update added games from the original Xbox library.

During Microsoft's E3 2015 press conference on June 15, 2015, Microsoft announced plans to introduce Xbox 360 backward compatibility on the Xbox One at no additional cost. Supported Xbox 360 games will run within an emulator and have access to certain Xbox One features, such as recording and broadcasting gameplay. Games do not run directly from discs. Not all Xbox 360 games will be supported; 104 Xbox 360 games were available for the feature's public launch on November 12, 2015 with Xbox One preview program members getting early access.

Microsoft stated that publishers will only need to provide permission to the company to allow the repackaging, and they expect the list to grow significantly over time. Unlike the emulation of original Xbox games on the Xbox 360, the Xbox One does not require game modification, since it emulates an exact replica of its predecessor's environment - both hardware and software operating systems. The downloaded game is a repackaged version of the original that identifies itself as an Xbox One title to the console.

At Gamescom, Microsoft revealed it has plans to ensure "all future Xbox 360 Games with Gold titles will be playable on Xbox One.” On December 17, 2015 Microsoft made another sixteen Xbox 360 games compatible with Xbox One, including titles such as Halo: Reach, Fable III and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. On January 21, 2016, Microsoft made another ten Xbox 360 games compatible, including The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. On May 13, 2016, Microsoft made Xbox 360 titles with multiple discs compatible, starting with Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut.

At its press briefing for E3 2019 on June 9, 2019, Microsoft announced its future gaming console, Xbox Series X, scheduled for release for the 2020 holiday season. One of Series X's features will include full backward compatibility with all Xbox One titles and the list of Original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles currently available. By May 2020, as the Xbox Series X was nearing release, Microsoft announced they were seeking further requests from players of what games to expand their backward compatibility library with.

Read also: Unveiling the Xbox One X

Want to expand your collection?

Enhancements on Xbox Series S

Backwards compatible original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles will benefit from becoming Xbox One X enhanced with patches targeted at maximizing the use of the Xbox One X's hardware beyond the standard improvements that come with backwards compatibility. Variable refresh rate compatibility allows displays to match the current frame rate of the console, preventing stuttering and tearing and improving the smoothness of motion.

Compatible games become even more beautiful than before with an improved look and feel to their gameplay. Now introducing FPS Boost, an enhancement added to previously released backward compatible titles to help boost framerates to nearly double that of their original. See your favorites in a new light with richer colors and lighting from Auto HDR. High dynamic range (HDR) gives the sense of richness and depth by allowing them to render a larger range of brightness and color.

While Microsoft has been very forthcoming about how backwards compatibility is going to work with Xbox Series X, it hasn't been quite so clear in how the smaller, cheaper Series S console works in running games from prior Xbox generations.

Last week, I had the chance to talk with the developers of the hardware and the news sounds very promising. Kicking off with games running on the vintage 2001 Xbox - the 'OG' machine - we've confirmed that Xbox Series S will run these games at an enhanced resolution. There's a 3x boost to resolution on both axes, meaning that titles targeting 480p on the original machine will hit a maximum of 1440p on Series S, presumably with a range of performance benefits.

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The good news continues with the enhanced Xbox 360 titles that were released for Xbox One X. These games will also be enhanced for Series S, this time running with a 2x2 resolution multiplier, bringing titles that ran at native 720p up to 1440p. While this doesn't match the max 4K we saw on Xbox One X, there is the potential for improved performance elsewhere thanks to the much faster Zen 2 CPU architecture.

It's already been confirmed that the ways in which Series S and Series X handle Xbox One titles varies. Only the Series X will benefit from Xbox One X enhancements to existing games - which typically boils down to resolution boosts, higher quality textures and other graphics-driven effects. Xbox Series S brings its additional horsepower to bear in improving the experience of Xbox One S titles instead. This is more limiting in some respects (a game hard-coded to run at 900p will not run any higher on Series S, for example) but the new console benefits from increased resolutions in games that use dynamic resolution scaling, as well as improvements to texture filtering quality.

Obviously, running games from solid state storage reduces loading times significantly, while the Auto HDR feature we've seen running on Series X also features on Series S - all games should present nicely on HDR screens, whether they natively support high dynamic range or not. It's a feature I personally can't wait to test.

"We designed the Series S to enhance the Xbox One S games in a way that the Xbox One X can't do," system architect Andrew Goossen tells us. "We made it easy for existing Xbox One S games to be updated to run with double the frame-rate when played on Series S as well. When games are updated, existing games can query to determine whether they're running on the new console. And in terms of the performance, the Series S provides well over double the effective CPU and GPU performance over the Xbox One, making it pretty straightforward for the games to do this.

The way Xbox One X handled non-enhanced Xbox One S titles was interesting - effectively users saw the enhanced GPU only running at half-rate, its compute units split between vertex and pixel processing. The new consoles are designed to run legacy Xbox One titles with the full power of both CPU and the new RDNA 2 GPUs.

"There's no real perf tuning necessary when you do this, and so often it's just as easy as changing three lines of code, and then the game works." Goossen adds. "Even when it's not that easy, the fixes are still pretty minor. We had one triple-A title where doubling the frame-rate really worked perfectly, except that the crowd animation was twice as fast as normal. And so, those sorts of fixes are typically very, very easy for developers to go fix. We're working with game developers and publishers to update [their titles].

"In some cases, for more service-based games or games that are still have active communities, it'll actually be easier for the developer to do it," says Xbox director of program management, Jason Ronald. "And then in other cases, we may be able to do things at our level, on behalf of the title, similar to how we've done it in the past. So, as we understand it, existing Xbox titles can be enhanced for both Series S and Series X in different ways - the compatibility team can step in with its own specific type of magic, opening the door to running 30fps games at 60fps and 60fps titles at 120fps. Alternatively, developers now have the tools to see where their existing Xbox One games are running - and if it's a Series S or Series X machine, aspects like doubling the frame-rate become possible (and perhaps other features could be enabled too) - all without having to 'port' their games to the next-gen platform.

The extent to which take-up will be there is of crucial importance, of course, but the potential is certainly very exciting and we're really looking forward to testing this out on both of the new Xbox machines.

There are 577 games that have been made backward compatible out of Expression error: Missing operand for +.

Here is a list of some of the games that are backwards compatible:

• Aliens vs.
• F.E.A.R.
• F.E.A.R.
• F.E.A.R.
• Go! Go!
• Interpol: The Trail of Dr.
• The Misadventures of P.B.
• Mortal Kombat vs.
• Mr.
• Ms.
• Ms.
• MX vs.
• MX vs.
• MX vs.
• Plants vs.
• Yosumin!

There are currently 42' on this list out of ' released for the Xbox. Games removed from store can still be played if a disc copy is owned or downloaded prior to removal.

Here are some notes on specific games:

• The European and Japanese versions, which feature more content, can be downloaded from Microsoft Store on American platforms by purchasing Dead or Alive 3 for $14.99 in Microsoft Store first, then changing the region in the Xbox settings to either United Kingdom or Japan, and restarting the console before downloading.
• Listed and considered as two separate games in Microsoft Store: "Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate" and "Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate" and will appear as separate in player's library. Searching "Dead or Alive Ultimate" will return no results in store.
• Digital version can only be bought in US Store.
• Also available via Game Pass.
• At least some disc versions aren't backwards compatible.
• Runs at 60 FPS.
• Digital version can only be bought in US Store.
• Europe only; not released in North America.
• Runs at 60 FPS.
• Runs at 30 FPS.
• Severe audio glitches: soundtrack and combat music will cut out after a series of intermittent buzzing-like sounds usually in the menu screen.
• Severe framerate drops during combat.
• Player characters will freeze in place and phase ahead instead of walking/running.
• Save file corruption is also a distinct possibility.
• Removed from store.
• Removed from store.

Whether you're looking to revisit classic titles or experience them for the first time, the Xbox Series S offers a fantastic way to enjoy gaming history. With enhanced resolutions, FPS Boost, and Auto HDR, these games look and play better than ever before.

tags: #xbox #series #s #backwards #compatible