It was confirmed earlier this week that the Xbox Games with Gold program would officially be getting rid of Xbox 360 titles beginning this October, marking the end of a near decade-long era for 360 games in the GwG program. Don't worry though — anything you've claimed up to now will be yours to keep, even if you end your subscription.
To mark the occasion, we've been going back and looking at some of the Xbox 360 games that were included as part of Games with Gold over the years, and there have been some real belters! In the first year alone back in 2013, we saw the likes of Assassin's Creed 2, Crackdown, Dead Rising 2, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, Gears of War and Halo 3!
2014 and 2015 didn't let up either, bringing us the likes of Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, Saints Row: The Third, Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season. Plus, Halo: Reach was added to the pile, along with Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment.
By November 2015, all Xbox 360 games included as part of Games with Gold were promised to be backwards compatible on Xbox One, with highlights over the next couple of years including Dead Space, Forza Horizon, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, Burnout Paradise, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Borderlands, and much more. 2018 and 2019 added to this with the likes of Crazy Taxi, Dante's Inferno, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and a variety of others.
There's no doubt that the major giveaways began to slow down around that point though, which happened to coincide with Xbox Game Pass becoming a major focus for Team Xbox instead, and over the past few years that trend has continued, although we've still seen some great additions such as Sonic Generations, Fable Anniversary, Injustice: Gods Among Us, LEGO Batman, Zone of the Enders HD Collection, and plenty others. It should also be noted that original Xbox titles eventually joined the fray, which has meant the quantity of Xbox 360 releases has been slightly lower over the past few years.
Microsoft says that after all this time, it has "reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalog", and to be fair, we've been treated to some really great giveaways over the past nine years. All good things must come to an end, but here at Pure Xbox, we'll still be enjoying a lot of these Games with Gold for many years to come.
What are your favourite Xbox 360 Games with Gold titles? Tell us down in the comments below.
Comments 14
Are there many games that are Backwards Compatible and have not been given away as part of Games with Gold?
It does make sense to end the '360' era games as that era of consoles is 'long' over and probably not selling Gold or Hardware anymore. What I mean by that is that people aren't buying Series hardware or Gold subscriptions primarily for the '360' era games - at most, its secondary or 'bonus'. If you asked Subscribers if they'd rather have 360 era games or Series era game(s) with their Gold subscription, I bet most would pick modern games.
PS+ stopped with their PS3 era games - although Sony doesn't offer BC with these on PS4/5's, but do offer more modern titles which makes sense as their target audience isn't playing on PS3 hardware...
This is just corporate garbage speech for saying "we don't want to give away free 360 games anymore, so hurry up and get GamePass". There's no convincing reason to end this service.
@BAMozzy you think current gen games are coming to gold?
if xbox 360 games replaced with xbox series optimized games. that would be great
I play Game Pass games a lot more than Games for Gold games, so I'm okay with ending the Xbox 360 component — and maybe even ending Games for Gold altogether — if it means a price hike on Game Pass is avoided or the service gets more of Microsoft's resources.
The whole "we've reached our limit" might be a bit of a white lie but i can see how it could be kinda true
They can't just add any game as publishers have to agree to their game being given away for free. They're also limited to 360 games that are backwards compatible etc so whilst there will still be some games that have never been given away - there likely aren't so many that the service can go on for much longer
However, as someone that didn't claim many of these games until the last couple of years, i'd love them to allow any of the former GwG games to be available once more before they end the 360 aspect of GwG
I've built a huge catalogue due to the GWG program, claiming every single game from the start. I'm quite happy for them to focus on newer games now, it's been a heck or a ride, despite the massive criticism from many players.
The question is 4 Xbox one games per month or two now? Or maybe 2 Xbox one and 2 series? Can't wait to see.
I'm holding out hope for some kind of End of the 360 Era GWG celebration from Microsoft. I only held out this last year so we could play Overwatch and maybe snuggle a couple 360 titles for keepsies. Or maybe release some of the Back-compat holdouts like Chron of Riddick, Eternal Sonata and Singularity.
There were some great games they gave away I think if like others they had some kind of blowout giveaway that would be awesome.
@BAMozzy A lot of BC's have not been given away
@JetmanUK I did too as well. The only thing now is you don't get to own the games for XboxOne and newer. You have to maintain your membership to access.
@EVIL-C What a way to gripe about something they maintained for a long time. They've gone the extra mile to give you ownership of those 360 games with no strings attached after membership expires. Of coarse, the focus is on GamePass. What did you expect?
@PushButtons Oooh yes, defend the corporation. How bold. How edgy. 🙄
@EVIL-C Oooh yes, cry about having to pay for something. And call ppl bold and edgy for calling out the whiners. How unoriginal.
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