Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Adds Xbox 360's Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy

Xbox One backwards compatibility allows users to play original Xbox and Xbox 360 games on Microsoft's latest family of consoles. At X018, Microsoft announced that the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy for Xbox 360 will be playable on Xbox One via backwards compatibility. What this means is, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy will all be playable on the Xbox One (via disc or digital download) from a rather apt November 13 date.

Final Fantasy XIII was the first single-player mainline Final Fantasy game to be made available on the Xbox 360. Previous entries in the long-running Japanese role-playing game series were either on Sony or Nintendo consoles. Given Square Enix's penchant for remastering and re-releasing its older content, we're surprised that Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels haven't received this treatment just yet. The announcement of their availability via backwards compatibility suggests that it might not happen.

"Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will be entirely new to the Back Compat catalog," a post from Microsoft reads.

"To date, gamers have enjoyed playing well over one billion hours of Backward Compatible games and we look forward to continuing to grow the collection including more than 500 Xbox 360 games, 25 Xbox One X Enhanced Xbox 360 titles, and 32 Original Xbox classics."

Considering that the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy is far from the highlight of the Final Fantasy series, it makes its availability via backwards compatibility more of a historical curiosity than anything else.

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