Halo Xbox 360 services to be sunset at the end of 2021

The end of an era.

While it may be the merriest time of the year, 343 Industries has dropped a bit sad news on us. Xbox 360 Halo legacy services will be sunset at the end of 2021, meaning you have approximately one year to experience nostalgia to its fullest before the era of Halo on last, last-gen comes to a close.

Revealed in a Halo Waypoint post, the plan to sunset all of the Halo Xbox 360 legacy services is being carried out in a four-phase plan of which we are currently in step two. The full phase system is as follows.

Phase One: One-time migration of over 6M pieces of Halo Xbox 360 Legacy UGC data to Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Phase Two: Initial notification to players, Digital sales of Halo Xbox 360 titles are halted (Halo Xbox 360 DLC can still be acquired at no cost)

Phase Three: Continued messaging and reminders throughout the year across Halo channels 

Phase Four: Halo Xbox 360 legacy services are turned off

343 has stated that they are "intentionally moving slowly and deliberately with a multi-phase approach to provide our players with plenty of advance notice."

This development is sad to see and does mean that the end of Halo's reign on the Xbox 360 era is ending, but it doesn't mean those games are no longer playable. All of the titles will still be playable indefinitely, however most of their online services will be disabled or limited for the future.

To read a little further into this change and to check out a few answers to some FAQs, head to Halo Waypoint over here.