Red Dead Redemption, Gears of War 2 and more get Xbox One X high fidelity treatment

With yesterday's news of Microsoft benevolently bestowing Xbox One compatibility on some of its older Xbox offerings, comes news of Xbox One X enhancements for five games as well as addition of backwards compatibility for Sonic Generations.

We'd love to have squeezed them all into the title, but it wouldn't budge. Anyhow, Rockstar's western Read Dead Redemption, Epic's Gears of War 2, Valve's Portal 2, Vigil Games' Darksiders and LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed are all getting the Xbox One X treatment.

Rockstar Games John dropping his gun as he succumbs to the bullet wounds

Red Dead Redemption's gun slinging update is said to weigh in at 582.73MB and is already available. Naturally, if you're a fan, you probably have it already. Besides, it wouldn't hurt having a quality distraction until Red Dead Redemption 2 hits the shelves come 26 October 2018.

Apparently, all the titles will sport higher resolutions and other visual improvements, tailored to make the once latest-and-greatest in Xbox 360 gaming on Xbox One X consoles. To be fair, even though not all Xbox 360 games are worth bringing back, there are many gems to be found there.

The Xbox One X optimisation is supposedly done via the Heutchy Method, named after a Microsoft employee who came up with it. Microsoft say it "leverages the power of Xbox One X to let the Xbox 360 emulator present the very best version of the game possible with the existing assets".

Valve Portal 2 - Atlas and P-body

All the visual improvements are done without touching the game code, which indeed corroborates Microsoft's intention to bring all the Xbox 360 titles back into the fray.

We'd love to say how it's wonderful seeing Microsoft maintaining its back catalogue purely for the love of its users, but we all know Benjamins are the name of the game. Not that we're complaining, mind you - games are games.

Microsoft also announced another backward compatibility addition to go with yesterday's bunch, which is Sonic: Generations. However, seeing as how there's plenty of financial opportunities in bringing back these titles, don't be surprised to see the entire Xbox 360 back catalogue brought back.