Microsoft will shut down Halo’s Xbox 360 online services in January

Microsoft has been slowly phasing out the Xbox 360 and closing down online services. Now with the Xbox Series X/S in the wild, and the older Halo games being replaced by the Master Chief Collection, it is time to take the Xbox 360 Halo titles offline, a process that will begin in 2022. 

Over the Xbox 360 lifecycle, we received no less than seven Halo titles, including Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Spartan Assault and Halo Wars. These legacy Halo games on Xbox 360 will be taken offline on the 13th of January 2022.

This sunsetting period actually began back in 2019, with the migration of over 6 million pieces of Halo Xbox 360 legacy files to Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Phase two began in late 2020, with initial notifications to players warning of the impending shutdown and a stop to sales of Xbox 360 Halo titles digitally. The plan was to end this process and take legacy Halo titles offline in December 2021, but with Halo Infinite launching that month, 343 Industries has pushed back the shutdown by a month to keep all hands on deck for Infinite's early days.

You will still be able to play these legacy Halo titles on an Xbox 360, but matchmaking services, file sharing and other features will no longer work. LAN multiplayer will remain in-tact where supported. It is also worth noting that this will have no impact on Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which will remain live and supported across Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

KitGuru Says: This is truly the end of an era, but the timing also makes a lot of sense. Nowadays if you're playing an older Halo game, you're more likely to be playing it through The Master Chief Collection, which will remain live and playable on modern platforms.

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