Two of the biggest announcements to come out of Microsoft's E3 press conference this year were all about old games. He had Phil Spencer announce that backwards compatibility was being switched on for the Xbox One, and later on we saw Rare announce a 30th Anniversary bundle of 30 games for the system. Among those games are Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and Viva Pinata, all early 360 games that had early examples of DLC. Curious if all that content would also be making the jump, I reached out.
https://twitter.com/RareLtd/status/611929095656579072
One helpful confirmation later, and we know that the extra PDZ maps and co-op for Kameo were confirmed for Rare Replay. However, if you look over the list of backwards compatible games currently available, you'll see that these same games can be played on Xbox One right now. I already owned most of the games in question, so I loaded them up and I was surprised to see that the Rare games included the DLC by default on Xbox One.
With a little help from Stretch (who wrote a great guide for playing these games without waiting to be inducted into the preview program), we then confirmed that games like Mass Effect and Defense Grid do not have their DLC included, and there is no current way to access the content even if you owned it on the last generation of consoles. There are even scattered reports of players unable to load their Mass Effect save games if they already had the DLC on 360.
This is a bit concerning for now, although the official FAQ of the backwards compatibility program does mentions that the DLC will be supported when the program is expanded to general audiences. As for whether you'll have to buy that DLC or not, that's still unconfirmed. After speaking with Mike Ybarra on Twitter, I learned that developers and publishers would have the final word on getting that content onto new systems, and that they will attempt to support purchasing DLC when the program goes wide. We reached out to Microsoft proper as well, and will update with more specific details if we receive them.
For now though, if you own Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, or either of the Viva Pinata games, you now have the DLC for those games for free on Xbox One, either through Rare Replay or backwards compatibility. It's an example of good preservation that I hope other developers follow when they are making decisions about their 360 games heading over to the current generation. Of course, I will have to keep bugging Rare until they port over every last pinata hat and/or mustache. One fight at a time.
What games are you excited about playing on Xbox One? Do you want to try out the Perfect Dark Zero maps for free? Do you feel for me since I had to pay for those maps back in the old days? Answer these questions and more in the comments below!
