While Microsoft has arguably fallen behind in some current-gen gaming console metrics, the company has taken a clear lead among the big-three systems' backwards-compatibility efforts. That's been evidenced in a regular drip-feed series of older 360 and OG Xbox games being brought forward to work on Xbox One systems, of which the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch have no peer. Honestly, these Xbox One announcements come frequently enough to not merit the spotlight treatment.
But Tuesday's announcement, which was teased a full week earlier, brought the goods with a substantial list of games newly converted to work on Xbox One—and a few Xbox One X "upgrade" surprises, to boot.
The arguable biggest news of the day is that Red Dead Redemption's Xbox 360 version has now been patched to take advantage of Xbox One X hardware. That means, like other Xbox 360 games given the X treatment, RDR will now render at nine times its original 720p resolution. Should you have a 4K TV, an Xbox One X, and a copy of RDR, you'll be able to play the game at 3840×2160 pixel resolution once its patch launches sometime today.
How does Red Dead Redemption look when boosted from 720p resolution to full-fat 4K? Take a look. We just captured these images from our own Xbox One X hardware as soon as the Tuesday patch went live. Rockstar Games The 4K effect is already evident even in Ars' shrunken galleries in terms of reducing jaggies and increasing distant details. Click any of these images to pick up the unedited 4K images captured from our Xbox One X. More of the opening train sequence. Many of the assets and textures clearly look last-gen, but a surprising amount of Red Dead holds up to up-res scrutiny.
[Update: The 4K patch is now live, and we have a little, beautiful gallery here for proof. Click any image while in the gallery interface to bring up a full 3840×2160 resolution screenshot captured from our own Xbox One X console.]
This one's a big deal specifically because RDR fans have waited for years for the game to receive a PC port, which might, among other things, let fans jack up the game's settings and resolution. Seeing as how Rockstar Games has remained mum on that possibility going on nearly eight years, we imagine this XB1X update will remain the only 4K way to play the game for some time.
The other Xbox 360 games slated to receive this same upscaling treatment today include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Darksiders, Portal 2, Gears of War 2, and Sonic Generations. Out of all of those, only Gears 2 hasn't received a PC port to let players manually crank the game's resolutions or settings higher than originally intended.
Microsoft's push to port more original Xbox games to Xbox One continued on Tuesday as well, with a whopping 19 pre-360 games coming to Xbox One by the end of April. These will land in two phases, and the first one, coming April 17, will include the never-ported-elsewhere Sega classic Panzer Dragoon Orta and the "complete" version of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
On April 26, the back-compat collection will expand with six Star Wars-themed games: both original Battlefront games, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Jedi Starfighter, Republic Commando, and Knights of the Old Republic II. (The first KOTOR RPG already landed on Xbox One back-compat last year.)
The rest of the announced original-Xbox back-compat games are as follows: Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Breakdown, Conker: Live & Reloaded, Hunter: The Reckoning, Jade Empire, and SSX 3 on April 19; and Destroy All Humans!, Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, and MX Unleashed on April 26. (European Xbox One owners will also get an exclusive shot at Panzer Elite Action: Fields of Glory on April 26.)
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Ars Technica
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