Microsoft will shut down the servers for ‘Halo’ Xbox 360 games at the beginning of next year.
The end of service date for the older games – which include the likes of ‘Halo: Reach’, ‘Halo 4’ and ‘Halo 3’ – has been pushed back, having initially been planned for December 2021.
Now, it’s been confirmed the “legacy services” will be switched off on January 13, 2022.
Studio 343 Industries said: “Continuing to evolve and expand ‘MCC’ while bringing our ambitious vision for ‘Halo Infinite’ to life is our top priority and stepping away from the day to day upkeep and hurdles of these aging services will empower the team to stay laser focused on our most critical future-facing endeavours.
“As noted above, this is just the beginning – and we’ll continue to message and remind our community of next year’s sunsetting in the coming months.
“For now, no action is required other than taking note. We would like to also flag that as these services continue to age and back-end work transpires, players may encounter intermittent disruptions.
“If we anticipate any work items will result in specific service interruptions along the way, we’ll be sure to get the word out.”
You’ll still be able to paly the games indefinitely, although multiplayer support will be stopped.
While this includes a number of titles – also including ‘Halo 3: ODST’, ‘Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary’, ‘Spartan Assault’ and ‘Halo Wars’ – it won’t apply to games featured in the ‘Master Chief Collection’.
The studio added: “The ‘Halo’ titles within ‘MCC’ have been rebuilt and remastered to leverage totally different, modernised services and will not be affected by this sunsetting.”
