Titanfall is finally out for Xbox 360 — and it doesn't look that bad

One of the biggest games of early 2014 is finally debuting on last gen, and it’s looking pretty good on the aging console.

Publisher Electronic Arts released Titanfall for the Xbox 360 today for $60. The sci-fi shooter that has mechs and foot soldiers fighting on the same battlefield debuted nearly a month ago on the Xbox One and PC, and now gamers who are sticking to Microsoft’s last system have a chance to experience developer Respawn Entertainment‘s chaotic action. EA originally planned to have the studio doing the port, Bluepoint Games, release the 360 version alongside the others on March 11. The publisher ended up pushing the release date back twice to give Bluepoint more time to polish the final product. Titanfall is an important release for EA, Microsoft, and Respawn, and the game’s performance on Xbox One may have a big impact on how successful the console is this year.

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The big concern many fans have is how the game will look on Xbox 360. It’s well known that Respawn built Titanfall for current-gen and high-end PCs, but that didn’t stop Bluepoint from bringing a feature-complete port to the older box. The biggest difference is, obviously, in the visuals. Bluepoint senior producer Daryl Allison warned gamers to expect a degradation in graphics just before launching the game.

“There are, of course, some differences that are due to the technical limitations of the hardware,” Allison wrote in a Titanfall.com blog post. “For example, the game runs above 30 frames per second, but the experts at Respawn worked with us to ensure that all the intense, 6-on-6 wall-running, Titan-dropping action is there.”

Video-performance website Digital Foundry took a look at Titanfall for Xbox 360 and provided the following video that shows the game struggling to maintain a constant refresh rate (which is how often the console renders a new image to display on the screen). On Xbox One, Titanfall stays close to 60, which is ideal, while the Xbox 360 release bounces between 30 and 60.

Check it out in action:

Despite those technical downgrades, which gamers were expecting, Titanfall on Xbox 360 looks a lot like the original. It also plays exactly the same, which is likely more important to most people.

As for Titanfall on Xbox One and PC, we’ve reached out to EA to ask how the game is doing, but we did not receive a response. We’ll update this post if we get any more information on that.

Respawn is next considering porting its shooter to Mac. After that, it’s likely on to the sequel. Don’t expect any PlayStation or Nintendo ports of Titanfall, though — Microsoft locked down the exclusive rights for this first game in the series.

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