The original version of Halo 2 that arrived on the OG Xbox back in 2004 no longer supports online multiplayer (due to the Xbox Live servers being turned off years ago), but thanks to Insignia, it's getting a new lease of life in 2025.

Over the weekend, a bunch of excited Halo fans took to social media to show off the sizable bunch of Halo 2 players that were logging into the game on Saturday, with the peak number seemingly being 148 players at once. Of course, that's just the peak number - it would seem that multiple hundreds actually logged onto the game throughout the day.

The reason for the boost in players was a "Halo 2 Insignia One Year Anniversary Marathon" that was set up by the Halo Classic Hub team, and it clearly racked up lots of interest. Insignia doesn't have the biggest userbase (there are only four people using it at the time of writing, for example), so to achieve a peak of over 100 players is quite something!

Insignia, as you may be aware, is a replacement service for the original version of Xbox Live that was present on the OG Xbox, and it's not the easiest thing to set up (it also requires workarounds that you should only try at your own risk). That said, we can't blame anyone for wanting to relive the classic Halo 2 days on original hardware!

The easier way to enjoy Halo 2 on modern systems is just to play Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but there's something special about playing on an OG Xbox that you can just can't replicate on any other device! The Insignia team has done a wonderful job making all of this possible over the past few years with many different games, and it'd be great to see Microsoft lend a hand and make it an official service for nostalgic Xbox fanatics in the future.

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What do you make of this? Do you still play Halo 2 online? Let us know down in the comments below.