The new Xbox One backwards compatible games coming to the platform today have been announced. The lineup includes sci-fi third-person shooter Earth Defense Force 2025, platforming time-travelling reboot Prince of Persia, and Digital Reality’s shoot-em-up Sine Mora. The announcement came directly from Major Nelson himself in a tweet posted an hour ago.
After last month’s releases of new Xbox One backwards compatible games including the likes of Dante’s Inferno, Silent Hill Homecoming, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, and Double Agent, it feels like August isn’t coming on as strong. Xbox spokesperson Major Nelson, aka Larry Hryb, tweeted out the first three Xbox One backwards compatible games coming to the platform this August to be launched today.
Prince of Persia, Earth Defense Force 2025 and SINE MORA are coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility today https://t.co/qPMRNs2ZLo pic.twitter.com/ALyoRniCv8
— Larry Hryb (@majornelson) August 7, 2018
The first is Prince of Persia, the reboot to the iconic franchise that was eventually spiritually succeeded by Assassin’s Creed. It saw mixed reviews during its launch in 2008, with many critics stating that while it had potential, the game was let down by oversimplified platforming mechanics in comparison to the original trilogy. The artistic design and technology, however, was usually seen in a positive light.
Earth Defense Force‘s inclusion might please a smaller, but faithful crowd. It’s a sci-fi third-person shooter from developer Sandlot that saw an incredibly average response critically. It was praised by some for its Starship Troopers style campy adventuring that doesn’t do much to wade outside of expectations, but others were particularly displeased by some of the aspects of this style, citing that it didn’t take itself seriously to its detriment.
Perhaps the critical highlight of this list is Sine Mora, a shoot-em-up developed by Digital Reality and released in 2012. Many had good things to say about some of Sine Mora‘s unique elements, like a boss training mode and time-based mechanics. If you were to give any game on this list a go, this would likely be your safest bet.
