Celeste and TowerFall are no longer for sale on the Xbox Store. Maddy Thorson, co-creator of both indie games, confirmed that the Celeste delisting on Xbox was deliberate and was done to support the BDS boycott of Microsoft.
Why Celeste was delisted from Xbox
Xbox players noticed this week that Celeste had disappeared from the store, and TowerFall was spotted missing soon after. Thorson then confirmed the move in a short post on Bluesky, writing: “We did this to support the BDS boycott.”
BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is a Palestinian-led movement that calls for boycotts of companies over their ties to Israel, and Microsoft is one of the companies on its boycott list. Microsoft has not publicly commented on the delisting so far.
Can you still play Celeste on Xbox?
If you already own either game on Xbox, you should not lose it. Reports say both games can no longer be bought, but they should still appear in existing owners’ libraries. New players can still pick up Celeste and TowerFall on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Both games are still live on Steam. Our tracker shows Celeste with 1,863 players at the time of writing and an all-time Steam peak of 7,720, while TowerFall Ascension keeps a much smaller but steady community.
Celeste
TowerFall Ascension
Big Walk skipped Xbox for the same reason
Celeste is not the first indie game to step away from Xbox this month. House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, said earlier in October that its new game Big Walk would not come to Xbox until Microsoft and Xbox are removed as BDS boycott targets. The game has done well on PC without it, with Big Walk reaching an all-time Steam peak of 46,345 players on our tracker.
A developer collective called No Games for Genocide has also been urging studios and players to boycott Xbox games and services as part of the movement, so Celeste and Big Walk may not be the last games to make this kind of move.
About Celeste and TowerFall
Celeste is a precision platformer from 2018 about Madeline, a young woman trying to climb Celeste Mountain. It won Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 2018 and is still one of the most loved indie platformers around. TowerFall is a local multiplayer archery battler that first launched on the Ouya before reaching PC and consoles as TowerFall Ascension. Both games come from Thorson’s studio, now known as Extremely OK Games.
You can follow the Celeste player count and other indie games live on our Steam player count tracker.
