Yee-haw! Red Dead Redemption comes to Xbox One backwards compatibility at last

After many months of requests Microsoft has finally announced that Red Dead Redemption is coming to the Xbox One, as part of the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility service.

As of Friday 8 July you will be able to play your existing digital or disc version of Red Dead Redemption on the Xbox One through Microsoft’s emulation. It will also be available to buy and will include the Undead Nightmare add-on, which brings zombies to the wild west.

It is not known yet whether the Game of the Year Edition, which came with two discs, will work, but considering the Xbox team recently announced support for other multi-disc games we don’t see why not. Indeed, that might explain the delay in including one of Rockstar’s finest.

• How Xbox One backwards compatibility works: The Xbox 360 games list and more
• Xbox boss Phil Spencer explains why your fave Xbox 360 game is not backwards compatible… yet
• Red Dead Redemption review

Another reason will be because of its sheer size. As Xbox boss Phil Spencer explained to Pocket-lint in February, large, open-world games are the hardest to approve for backwards compatibility as they have to be thoroughly bug checked to ensure they work throughout.

“Some of these games are big. You can imagine going through some of these games and making sure they run. It’s the publisher’s right to be sure the game plays as well if not better,” he said.

Maybe this now heralds the addition of other major Rockstar games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV and LA Noire. We can but hope.