Five Activision Games We Want To Become Xbox Backwards Compatible In 2024
It’s officially 2024, which means we should —we repeat, should — be getting a huge batch of Activision Blizzard games on Xbox Game Pass this year. While the prospect of modern ActiBlizz releases from the Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro series’ hitting Game Pass is an exciting one, we can’t help but think about some of the publisher’s ‘lost’ releases these days.
There are loads and loads of old Activision games that launched on OG Xbox & Xbox 360 and just aren’t easily playable on modern platforms nowadays. A bunch of the publisher’s more niche releases aren’t backwards compatible at all – not to mention older Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawk games that are also in limbo on older platforms.
And so, we’ve gathered just a few Activision games that we’d love to see added to Xbox Backwards Compatibility this year. Sure, the program has all-but gone away now, but surely it could be loaded back up once again now that the ActiBlizz deal has officially gone through, right? We’re sure hoping these five games, and many more, become backwards compatible in 2024.
Publisher: Activision / Developer: Bizarre Creations
We can’t start this list without mentioning a niche Xbox 360 racer! Blur, from the team once responsible for Xbox’s fantastic Project Gotham Racing series, is a brilliant mashup of arcade and kart racing that we’d love to see return via Xbox backwards compatibility.
We get it, car licensing probably makes this a somewhat unrealistic wish, but it’s our wish all the same and we have great memories of playing this one on Xbox 360. Unfortunately, developer Bizarre Creations is no more (R.I.P.), but as far as we know Activision still holds the rights to the franchise and could feasibly bring it back.
We aren’t expecting much here, but Blur playable through Xbox backwards compatibility would be absolutely fantastic. Our old physical copy is waiting to be put to use again, Microsoft!
Publisher: Activision / Developer: Infinity Ward
There’s plenty of Call of Duty playable on modern Xbox consoles – almost the entire franchise can be loaded up easily either physically or digitally via backwards compatibility. We’re glad of that, there’ve been some great Call of Duty releases over the years – however, there remains one strange Xbox CoD omission in 2024.
The first Call of Duty — initially released on PC in 2003 — was brought to Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade release in 2009. Labelled Call of Duty: Classic, this version of the first CoD is the only way to play the game’s original campaign on console.
The ‘Classic’ release did cut down on multiplayer features, which is unfortunate, but our OCD would be suitably satisfied if Microsoft would make this one backwards compatible. Then, we’d have every single CoD game playable on Xbox Series X|S in some form – which would be very cool indeed as Team Green becomes the owner of one of the biggest gaming franchises ever.
Publisher: Sierra / Developer: Traveller’s Tales
The Crash games from this era are somewhat controversial — not everyone loved the series’ direction after Naughty Dog’s involvement ceased — but we did quite enjoy The Wrath of Cortex. The first main Crash game to arrive on Xbox, The Wrath of Cortex kept things fairly in-line with the PS1 releases that came before it – for good reason.
We’ve had a play around with this one on our OG Xbox console in recent years and it holds up pretty well, so we’d really like to see it become fully playable on Xbox Series X and S. On a surface level this one should be easy enough to bring to backwards compatibility – especially as Activision has begun engaging with the series once again in recent times.
We also thought about Crash Nitro Kart here (we’re suckers for a good kart racer), but with the team adding lots of CNK content into Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, we reckon Wrath of Cortex would be the better backwards compatible addition in 2024.
Publisher: Activision / Developer: Neversoft
Tony Hawk returned to its roots back in 2020 after what felt like an age since the good old days, although the series’ latest release was only a re-imagining of the first two games in the franchise. We’d love to see a brand-new entry in the spirit of the old games, but alas, we’re still waiting on that in 2024.
However, the original Xbox era was a golden one for the series – especially the Underground spin-offs. And so, we’d really, really like to see Tony Hawk’s Underground (and potentially its sequel) be revived through backwards compatibility this year.
This is another one that feels like it should be a fairly simple addition to the back compat program. There’s probably music licensing issues to tackle of course, but Activision clearly has interest in the IP after Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 – which managed to deliver a fantastic updated soundtrack in 2020. That re-release was great, but please, bring back Underground for Xbox Series X and S!
Publisher: Activision / Developer: Raven Software
We’ve seen lots of discussion lately about Raven Software and the potential for them to break free from Call of Duty – and we’d absolutely love to see that happen. Singularity is often brought up as the real marker for letting Raven loose, but we want to shout out another of the team’s Xbox 360 FPS titles.
Wolfenstein (2009) is an underrated entry in the long-running franchise in our eyes. The MachineGames reboot has been fantastic but it’s always lived in the shadow of DOOM’s big return last generation – and the 2009 Wolfenstein game felt like it delivered a more unique spin on the IP.
It was weird – more sci-fi leaning with it’s cool dual-dimension mechanic, and we have fond memories of it on Xbox 360. Maybe it’s because it was based on a franchise we already knew, but we have the strongest ties to Wolfenstein ’09 when it comes to Raven Software. Shoutout to Singularity too though – that could easily have made this list!
These are just a few of the ActiBlizz Xbox games we’d like to see return to modern consoles in 2024, and we know there are tons more that we haven’t mentioned in this list. From James Bond to True Crime and potentially even another Simpsons game (rights permitting), there’s lots we’ve missed here – and we’d absolutely take these as backwards compatible additions as well! We’re excited to see what 2024 brings when it comes to Xbox and Activision Blizzard.
