By Chromehounds is making a comeback! What is Chromehounds, you might wonder? It’s a multiplayer mecha game crafted by FromSoftware that is not Armored Core, and it thrived for four years on the Xbox 360.
Chromehounds was remarkably ahead of its era – essentially a live-service experience, but from 2006, years before they gained widespread popularity. There’s also an offline narrative mode that, in classic FromSoftware style, mandates you to finish it six times to grasp the complete story.
Three nations on the edge of conflict are vying in Hounds, massive, destructive mechs that can be customized by their operators – that’s you. It feels very much like Armored Core. In the online multiplayer, a persistent war unfolds following the events of the campaign, and you must select a nation to pledge allegiance to before battling with the others.
Territory is gained or lost depending on the number of matches you win in a particular region, and after two months or when one nation has dominated the entire map, the war concludes and a new one starts. Sega dismantled its servers in 2010, but a fan revival has been underway for a couple of years, and now you can engage in private matches by navigating some rather intricate steps to get them operational on your PC. Join the Discord to find out more.
“After 15 years since Sega shut down the servers, Chromehounds endures,” declares a victorious tweet from one of the moderators.
After 15 years since Sega shut down the servers, Chromehounds endures. pic.twitter.com/jemBUeA27NMay 21, 2025
“Xenia (the premier Xbox 360 emulator) currently has an experimental branch for simulating Xbox Live matchmaking,” mentions a message in the group’s Discord. “If the method for enabling free battles can be established, we could potentially engage in free battles for the first time in 12 years.”
Moderators advise that you shouldn’t “approach with the expectation of it functioning seamlessly right now,” but this signifies more advancement than there has been in 15 years, so enthusiasts of classic mecha games should celebrate.
One tester, having over 600 hours in the original game, conveys that “just seeing the multiplayer hangar again after 15 years was extremely emotional for me.”
Another community member involved in the revived framework stated: “Sega and FromSoftware abandoned this title, and it was one of the finest video games ever released for the 360. No other games capture the same charm and simplicity that Chromehounds possesses. It was a straightforward game, and though there were DLC components, acquiring the DLCs didn’t equate to buying the meta … MechWarrior cannot compare, nor do any of the Armored Core titles; Chromehounds is in a category of its own, and it’s unfortunate that FromSoftware never developed a sequel or a port.”
At this moment, individuals in the Discord are sharing their screens and experimenting with private matches together, noting parts that also appear in Armored Core 4. FromSoftware continues to reign as the masters of clever asset reuse.
In the meantime, here’s a