Microsoft Brings 25 Original Xbox Games to Windows PC From November 12
Microsoft will make 25 original Xbox games playable on Windows PC starting November 12, 2026, to mark the console's 25th anniversary. Microsoft says all 25 titles can be played with keyboard and mouse.
There is a catch for owners of physical media. Original Xbox discs cannot be used to play these games on PC, so anyone who kept their library on disc will need a digital version. The PC route runs entirely through digital distribution, meaning games bought and downloaded from an online store.
The program expands the Xbox on PC backward compatibility effort, which lets older games run on newer hardware. Microsoft launched that effort in July with four Xbox games. The release takes the catalog to 25 titles. Microsoft's Xbox Wire post for the release carries the headline "25 Original XBOX Games Available Today on PC via XBOX Backward Compatibility."
Microsoft is also adding achievements, the in-game milestones that players can track, to original Xbox games for the first time. The initial set covers Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and Conker: Live and Reloaded. Those four titles can unlock achievements on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles after a system update, so the tracking is tied to the console side of the ecosystem, not only to the PC builds.
Game Pass coverage is narrower. Six titles are included with Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's subscription service: Blinx, Conker, Crimson Skies, Fusion Frenzy, Morrowind, and Grabbed by the Ghoulies. The remaining titles fall outside the subscription.
In my view, the detail worth watching is the pairing of digital-only access with achievement parity across platforms. Porting a catalog built around optical media and a console-specific runtime to a PC target, with cross-platform achievement hooks, takes real engineering and rights work. It also shows how much legacy game preservation now depends on storefront entitlements, the digital records that prove you own a game, rather than physical media. Whether that suits owners of original discs depends on how each person weighs a native PC build against losing the disc as a standalone key.
The broader context is the age of the platform. The original Xbox launched in 2001, and for most of the years since, its library has been difficult to run on modern hardware. Backward compatibility on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles has covered many of those titles, and the PC effort carries that approach to a platform most current gaming hardware already runs. For developers and preservation-minded players, the open questions are which titles follow, on what terms, and whether digital copies stay available over the long term. Those answers will come in later announcements.
