‘Dark Souls’ Made Xbox One Backwards Compatible, Included With ‘Dark Souls 3’ Pre-Order
Dark Souls III pre-orders went live Tuesday for the Xbox One with an extra surprise. The original Dark Souls will be backwards compatible on the Xbox One to tempt gamers to die, die, and die again. In fact, it appears as though From Software’s classic action role-playing classic will be available this month.
The Xbox Store pre-order page for Dark Souls III went live Tuesday with the revelation that Dark Souls will be offered as a pre-order bonus for Xbox One owners. What’s more, the backwards compatible game will be available to play within 7 to 10 days of pre-ordering, which means the Xbox 360 title should become available before the end of February, and you don’t have to wait until April 12 for Dark Souls III to launch.
Dark Souls III is available for Pre-order & Pre-download on Xbox One. Comes with Dark Souls https://t.co/nIS2jE1LEM pic.twitter.com/hxGWfMBLuI
— Larry Hryb ?? (@majornelson) February 16, 2016
Here is the official text from the Dark Souls III pre-order page.
For a limited time, purchase a digital pre-order of DARK SOULS™ III on the Xbox One Store and get the original Dark Souls playable on Xbox One. The code for Dark Souls will be delivered to your Xbox message center in 7-10 days.
Namco Bandai and From Software also announced the Collector’s Edition and Day One Edition of Dark Souls III on Tuesday. Neither of these includes the original Dark Souls as a backwards compatible title, but they do have the following.
Dark Souls III Day One Edition – $59.99
- DARK SOULS III software
- Prima Starter Guide
- Official DARK SOULS III Soundtrack
- Exclusive O-Sleeve packaging
Dark Souls III Collector’s Edition – $129.99
- DARK SOULS IIIsoftware
- Prima Starter Guide
- Official DARK SOULS IIISoundtrack
- Official art book
- Cloth game map
- 10? Red Knight Statue
- Collector’s box
Of course, there’s still a big backlog of games that were revealed when they were accidentally made available to download from the Xbox Store while being tested by Microsoft. That list includes Call of Duty: Black Ops, Left 4 Dead 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Red Dead Redemption, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and others.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Xbox One manages backwards compatibility by emulating the entire Xbox 360 operating system. This allows Xbox 360 games to run on the Xbox One without any special coding or other workarounds. The major hurdles remaining are the licensing agreements with development studios and publishers to allow the games to be played on the Xbox One and listed for sale on the Xbox Store for the console.
Xbox One backwards compatibility has been a hit for the console since it was announced at E3 2015. In addition to providing one of the biggest applause points of Microsoft’s press conference, console owners have spent more than 21 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on their new console thus far.
There have been some issues with Xbox One backwards compatibility, though. As Eurogamer recently pointed out, some games have seen performance issues. Halo: Reach‘s performance has been lackluster, rendering some sections of the game nearly unplayable. Likewise, Mass Effect sees problems, including frame rate dips during combat. Gears of War: Judgment is deemed “nearly unplayable due to severe performance drops.”
The performance issues of Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One are largely on a case-by-case basis. Performance is actually improved in some cases, however. For example, games like Hydro Thunder and Condemned have seen better performance overall, while there are spots of improvements, such as the elevator loading scenes in Mass Effect.
[Image via Namco Bandai]
