Four Valve Games Get Xbox One X-Enhanced

Microsoft has announced four Xbox One backwards compatible games have been X-enhanced. This means that these Xbox 360 titles run at a higher resolution and nine times the original pixel count on an Xbox One X.

All four games–Portal: Still Alive, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2–are developed by Valve. When all is said and done, it’s technically five games, as Half Life 2: The Orange Box is a combined collection of Half-Life 2, Portal: Still Alive, and Team Fortress 2. You can buy the games digitally from the Xbox Store or use the original Xbox 360 discs. The addition of these four games brings the number of Xbox One backwards compatible X-enhanced titles to 21, a list that also includes games like Red Dead Redemption and Skate 3.

First releasing in 2007–as part of Valve’s The Orange Box bundle–Portal: Still Alive is a 3D puzzle platformer that focuses on a battle of wits between the silent protagonist Chell and the psychopathic A.I. antagonist GLaDOS. Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 have had long-standing effects on the video game industry, such as the former playing a huge part in the success of Steam’s launch and the latter inspiring titles like Overwatch. The Left 4 Dead series temporarily revitalized interest in zombie video games with campaigns centered around teamwork-based first-person shooter combat and a multiplayer horde mode.

All of these games have received near perfect scores on GameSpot for their impressive gameplay and well written stories. In our Portal: Still Alive review, we gave the game a 9/10. In our Half-Life 2 review, we gave the game a 9.2/10. In our Team Fortress 2 review, we gave the game an 8/10. In our reviews for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, we gave the former an 8.5/10 and the latter a 9/10.