Xbox's Backwards Compatibility List is Incomplete

While driving games aren’t something I usually enjoy, I’m always happy to try one out if it’s set in an open world. It’s the ones that have you on a set racing track that I don’t like, because it’s just going around and around… Back on the PlayStation I quite enjoyed the Colin McRae Rally games from Codemasters that my brother kept buying, because they weren't boring road circuits. Weirdly, I really hate being forced to race in non-racing games, despite those usually being open worlds…

That’s some backstory as to why I decided to take a look at Forza Horizon 5 when it was released on Game Pass. I thought that the E3 trailer and the gamescom showcase were fantastic, and they actually got me excited for a racing game. It was set in the “whole” of Mexico, just like The Crew was set in the “whole” United States of America, and I enjoyed that.

Turns out, it’s actually a fantastic game, and deservedly won awards; it also made me want to check out the rest of the games in the Forza Horizon series. Unfortunately, only Forza Horizon 4 was still on sale, and also available on Game Pass. Curiously, however, I found that I already owned Forza Horizon 2 thanks to Games With Gold in 2018, so I could also download that to my Xbox Series X.

Of course, wanting more Forza Horizon, I installed both 2 & 4, and played through the second game. Since it was also an Xbox 360 game, the Xbox One version had limitations compared to the latest entry, such as lots of immovable trees, fences and walls. Still, I was very curious how the franchise had changed over the years.

Just the other day, I was in a shop that sells second-hand games and electronics. I spotted Forza Horizon as well as Forza Horizon 3, both priced quite reasonably, so I grabbed them. But when I got home, I checked the Xbox Backwards Compatibility list on the Xbox website and became confused. See, the list tells you every game that works on the current consoles, even newly released ones, but the only Forza games that it says will work are:

• Forza Motorsport 7
• Forza Horizon 4
• Forza Horizon 5

Now, you no doubt noticed that I already said that I played Forza Horizon 2. But you can also see that it’s not on that list, despite the fact that it was given away to Xbox Live Gold subscribers in 2018…

With this in mind, I popped the Forza Horizon disc into my Series X and it installed perfectly fine, even downloading a 9GB update specifically so that it worked on the console. Once that was installed, in went Forza Horizon 3.

While struggling to install Horizon 3, I became concerned that the backwards compatibility list was actually correct. The disc only installed 30MB before telling me “Installation Stopped”. Concerned that I didn’t have enough space, I uninstalled a couple of games and tried again, coming up with the same issue. After much searching, I decided to actually try the first solution that Microsoft suggested: delete all of the local save files and try again. This worked for some reason, though several times while installing from the disc & downloading the 10GB update, it stopped installing for seemingly no reason.

I’d like it on record that Forza Horizon works perfectly fine on the Xbox Series X, and Forza Horizon 3 gives you the Xbox One X version of the game. While I haven’t yet finished either of them, I’ve played enough of both to see that they work as well as any of the other three titles.

This is all a long way to say that the official backwards compatibility list is clearly incomplete. While it’s unlikely that Microsoft simply forgot about three games that they published, it’s possible. More likely, however, is that games Microsoft is no longer selling are just not included on the list. So if you have a bunch of old game discs that don’t show up on the list, how do you know that they really don’t work?

Most games that aren’t on the list will, of course, not work. Microsoft actually has to do things on their end to enable it, because the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles can't “just” run old games. But it does beg the question of which games they have “done things” with and not included on the list, because they’re not able to make money off of them.

As with most things, there’s a page on Wikipedia which lists backwards compatible titles, though it only lists original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles. I cross-checked multiple titles between it and the official list, and the one run by Microsoft is sorely lacking. While it’s hardly surprising that the official one lists 33 Call of Duty titles (because of multiple editions), there are Xbox Live Arcade titles missing. The official list is a bit weird to search on too, as searching for “metal gear” brought up between zero and five Metal Gear Solid games on multiple searches. However, it would not show me Metal Gear Solid HD Collection no matter what I typed, a game that you cannot buy digitally from Microsoft. Similarly, both Left 4 Dead and its sequel are Xbox One X enhanced, yet not on the official list!

That seems to be the main issue. If you cannot pay Microsoft for the game, it won’t appear on the compatibility list. Do games get removed from the list once Microsoft isn’t making money off of it? I’ve no way of knowing, without monitoring the lists closely. If you find yourself looking at old games and wondering, just check the Wikipedia list before you buy it. It’s a much better list, and actually works as intended.