The Xbox One Backward Compatibility team has released a new patch for Halo: Reach for Xbox One, reported to bring the game performance improvements, a long-awaited fix for many.
Xbox One's backward compatibility was announced back in last year's E3, to the uproarious praise of the Xbox gaming community, delighted that they can play beloved games on the new console.
However, when Halo: Reach was released as one of the first games to support the console's backward compatibility in December, it was unexpectedly met with disappointment, as many fans fumed at the sub-par quality in which the games performed on the new console. Bungie and the Xbox One team were decked by upset and angry gamers, reporting the game's abysmal frame rate when played on Xbox One, alongside other issues, rendering it almost unplayable.
The underwhelming port blew the confidence of the Xbox gaming community who had eagerly anticipated the beloved game, one which propelled the Xbox 360 in a near-unanimous critical and commercial acclaim back in its era.
But finally, those who gave up playing the Halo: Reach because of its flagrant underperformance may have a new reason to give it a second look. The new patch for Halo: Reach is now live, fixing up performance and frame rate issues that wounded many gamers.
Bill Stillwell, Xbox Platform's principal project manager lead was the first one to bear the good news via Twitter.
Finally pushing out an update to Halo: Reach on BC.
— Bill Stillwell (@wcstillwell) Oct. 7, 2016
Users on the Halo forums confirmed that the patch was indeed live and running. And it seems that the updated Halo: Reach is worth a second look since users have started to rave about the performance improvements brought on by the patch, even going as far as saying that Halo: Reach now runs much more smoother than it did on the original Xbox 360.
As per the forums, it has been confirmed that the Xbox One Backward Compatibility team was fully responsible for the new patch.
"We spoke with the fine folks on the [Backward Compatibility] team, and they confirmed that this should help with performance (framerate)," said John Junyszek, 343 Industries' community coordinator.
After Microsoft and Bungie had a falling out in 2007, Microsoft created 343 Industries in 2009 to supervise and handle all Halo-related franchise. They have since released six Halo titles in total, across multiple platforms, with Halo Wars 2 set to be released in December.
The patch comes in at almost 1 GB, with no official changelogs or patch notes that detail specific changes that were applied.
Halo: Reach, widely popular among the gaming community, needs no explanation. But for the uninitiated, the game is a first-person shooter developed by Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 in 2010. You play as a super soldier named Noble Six, tasked to engage in combat against an alien species called the Covenant.
In 2015, The Verge reported that the Halo series has earned over $5 billion in total sales.
