Film

Halo 3 And Other Xbox 360 Classics Now Playable On The Go

16 March 2026

Xbox 360 emulation has, surprisingly, come to the Apple ecosystem. Classic, beloved games from the era, like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4 may, in time, be fully playable on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

XeniOS is an off-shoot of an existing Xbox 360 emulation project, Xenia, and is being developed specifically for Apple devices (cheers, Windows Central). Xenia is an Xbox 360 emulator for PC, and XeniOS is, according to its website, “an experimental Apple-focused fork of Xenia.” The open-source emulator is “pre-release and experimental,” which seems to be why it’s not available directly from the App Store. XeniOS must be side-loaded, and has separate downloads for its iOS/iPadOS and macOS versions.

Halo 3, Fable 2, And More May Soon Be Playable On The Move

Performance May Vary

Now that a build of XeniOS is publicly available, actually getting Xbox 360 games to run on it is something of a group effort. The compatibility list shows that, at the time of writing, 195 games have been tested, and only a quarter of them, 48 games, are considered playable. Unfortunately, as with any emulation project, XeniOS’s mileage varies. Halo 3 will let you in-game, but isn’t considered fully playable. Fable 2 has so far only accrued the “Nothing” status, meaning it doesn’t even boot.

The caveat here is that Apple’s ecosystem has numerous devices and OS versions. Fable 2 was tested on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, for instance, so someone with a different configuration may have better luck. Some of the more notable games that are considered playable (and are rated higher than “Poor” performance) include Dragon Age: Origins, Borderlands, Castle Crashers, BioShock, Bully, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (in case you’re too impatient to wait for the MGS: Master Collection Vol. 2 release).

A New Xbox 360 Emulator Has Launched

Artwork of the main character in Fable 2

XeniOS is a major stepping stone for Xbox 360 emulation. The larger Xenia project has been in development for more than a decade, beginning in 2013, and has made major strides in Xbox 360 emulation on PC. Xenia is even being used for unreleased games like the long-lost Star Wars: First Assault, a beta version of which recently resurfaced. We’re in the early stages of the XeniOS branch, but it’s already very promising to see many games playable, especially on iPhones.

Emulators have also become important for game preservation. Official emulation regularly sees new classics added to Game Pass – Microsoft is ahead of the curve in supporting emulation of its retro library – but open source emulators like Xenia and XeniOS can help ensure old games remain available without official first-party support. There’s a long way to go before games like Halo 3 and Fable 2 are fully playable on an iPhone, but XeniOS is off to an impressive start, and it could use your help if you’ve got the time to do some testing.