In December of this year, 343 Industries and Microsoft will be shutting down the Halo Xbox 360 servers. Effectively, this means that the online multiplayer for Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: Reach, and Combat Evolved Anniversary will no longer be available as they originally were on Xbox 360, and only playable through Halo: The Master Chief Collection. While the vast majority of gamers have moved on to other consoles, there are still many who have fond memories of playing Halo games on Xbox 360, and those gamers are planning to jump back in to experience the games one last time.
A viral TikTok video by user kayjayohpcs, aka Keith Over, reminded Halo fans about the Xbox 360 Halo servers shutting down, as he asked viewers for a birthday present. His request is for anyone that still owns their Xbox 360 console to grab some friends and jump on Halo: Reach on Saturday, March 13 at 5:00pm EST to celebrate the games and his birthday. "I can't just let Halo die off slowly like that. We gotta give it one more big bang," kayjayohpcs explained in the video. "I want there to be so many people we crash the servers."
This is a rather ambitious goal, especially for a game that's over a decade old like Halo: Reach. However, it's worth pointing out that players don't actually need an Xbox 360 to play the Xbox 360 version of the game. The Xbox 360 version of Halo: Reach has been playable on Xbox One since 2015 through the backward compatibility program, and it's also available to play on Xbox Series X. So while it may be more nostalgic for one to track down an Xbox 360 console to play Halo: Reach on March 13 at 5:00pm EST, those interested may be able to participate using their newer hardware as well.
Of course, they will need to make sure that they are playing the backward compatible Xbox 360 version of Halo: Reach and not the newer version of the game. A new version of Halo: Reach was added to Halo: The Master Chief Collection in December of 2019, bringing the game's content to modern platforms and making The Master Chief Collection an even more comprehensive package.
In any case, it seems many people are supportive of Keith Over's goal to have a massive Xbox 360 Halo: Reach party in March. The TikTok video hasn't even been up for 24 hours at the time of this writing and already has over 700,000 likes and over 31,000 comments. As long as they remember to participate, it seems that Halo: Reach multiplayer on Xbox 360 may very well get its last hoorah.
Halo: Reach is available for PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: TikTok - kayjayohpcs