Celeste and TowerFall developer Maddy Thorson has confirmed that both games have been delisted from Xbox. Players noticed earlier today that the two games quietly disappeared from the platform, and in response to speculation Thorson confirmed that the team removed the games in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
"For those who're asking, yes we delisted Celeste and TowerFall on XBox," Thorson says in a Bluesky post. "We did this to support the BDS boycott."
BDS asks supporters to boycott several companies, including Microsoft, for what it calls "their complicity in Israel's occupation, apartheid and genocide against Palestinians." Other companies targeted by the movement include HP, Disney, Intel, Dell, and Reebok.
Microsoft has previously provided cloud and AI services to the Israeli military. As reported by The Guardian earlier this year, the company cut off one Israeli intelligence agency from using that technology, following an inquiry into how the country was using Microsoft's technology in a mass surveillance campaign targeting Palestinians. BDS celebrated that as a win for its campaign, but says that Microsoft is still providing other technological support to Israel.
BDS asks supporters to "boycott Microsoft products whenever possible," specifically singling out the company's gaming division by targeting Xbox games and broader titles under the Microsoft umbrella, including Minecraft, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush. It additionally asks supporters to cancel their Xbox Game Pass subscriptions and boycott Xbox platforms, including both the console itself and the PC app.
Several developers have removed their games from Xbox platforms or declined to release on them in solidarity with BDS, including this year's co-op hit Big Walk, but Celeste is arguably the highest profile title yet. The platformer launched to rave reviews and was a dark horse game of the year contender in 2018. It remains one of the best-rated games on Steam, and is still available across PlayStation, Nintendo, and other, non-Microsoft PC platforms.
