The Xbox 360 is one of the all-time great consoles that, among other things, spearheaded the ecosystem for indie games and digital downloads. That makes the closure of the Xbox 360 marketplace at the end of July all the more bittersweet, as the console’s storefront will permanently go offline, closing the book on one of the most eclectic game libraries ever.
Despite Microsoft’s investment in backwards compatibility for a bunch of the console’s games on Xbox One and Series X/S, there are a ton of treasures, trash, and everything in-between that will be that much harder to play once the lights go out because of a range of licensing issues and technical difficulties. And while some of those games are available on PC, lots of them aren’t or have since been delisted.
While players will still be able to go online and re-download games and DLC from their existing Xbox 360 libraries, they won’t be able to add anything new to it. A bunch of games are currently on sale up until the July 29, 2024 shutdown date. Others went MIA long ago or only have free trials or demos available to download. In the meantime, here are 24 weird favorites and forever classics from the red-ring years we hope to see again some day or at least preserved for the historical record.
Correction 7/11/2024 2:30 p.m. ET: A previous version of this list incorrectly labeled which games can still be purchased form the Xbox 360 marketplace.