Microsoft has announced that Half-Life 2’s The Orange Box, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2 all now feature 4K enhancements on Xbox One X.
The Orange Box, which released on Xbox 360 in 2007 and gained Xbox One backward compatibility last year, is an absurdly generous bundle, featuring stone-cold classics Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. The latter game also gets 4K support via its standalone edition, known as Portal: Still Alive.
“The Orange Box offers everything any fan of first-person shooters could possibly want: some of the best single-player gaming ever in the shape of Half-Life 2 and Episodes One and Two; wonderful innovation from Portal, and the most refined, downright fun team-based online FPS currently available in Team Fortress 2,” said Kristan Reed on Eurogamer once upon a time, “Buy it and enjoy one of the must-have releases of this – or any other – year.”
Also now shimmering with unearthly 4K splendour on Xbox One X are Valve’s magisterial co-operative zombie shooters, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. Both are utterly wonderful (I think I’ve probably played these two more than any other games in my collection over the years), and both have been showered with praise at various intervals on this very site.
“Whereas once we treated Left 4 Dead as a stopgap between Half-Lifes,” said Tom Bramwell of the sequel back in 2009, “this is no longer a weird little side project with modest expectations… whereas [Left 4 Dead 1] had a personality, this one is overflowing with it.”
You can use your original Xbox 360 disc copy of The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead, or Left 4 Dead 2 to get your 4K enhancement jollies on Xbox One X, should you still happen to have them to hand. Alternatively, if you’ve yet to add them to your collection, The Orange Box will set you back £14.99/$19.99 USD on the Xbox Store, with Left 4 Dead and its sequel each coming in at the same price. Portal: Still Alive, meanwhile, is £9.99/$14.99 USD.