Celeste and TowerFall Pulled From Xbox Store in BDS Protest

Two well-known indie games vanished from the Xbox storefront earlier this week, and the developer behind them says the removal was intentional. In a post on Bluesky, Maddy Thorson, who co-created Celeste, said the games were taken off sale on Xbox as a show of support for the BDS movement.

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. It is a campaign that asks individuals, companies and institutions to cut financial and commercial ties with businesses seen as linked to or backing Israel's government, with the aim of pressuring that government over its conduct during the conflict in Palestine. Thorson's post places the decision within that campaign, framing the delisting as a protest against companies it believes support Israel's government during the war.

Celeste is a critically acclaimed platformer released in 2018 about a young woman climbing a dangerous mountain, and it became one of the best-known indie releases of its era. TowerFall is a fast, couch-friendly archery battler that has long been a staple of local multiplayer sessions. Neither title is a niche release, which made the sudden disappearance from one of the major console storefronts noticeable to players quickly.

The initial report does not say how Microsoft responded to the delisting or whether either game will return to the Xbox store. Players who want to buy or redownload the titles should check the storefront directly for current availability, since the situation could change as the story develops.

Thorson's post puts a developer's political stance directly onto a platform decision that is usually handled quietly behind the scenes. It is a reminder that publishers and developers increasingly use storefront control as a form of protest, and that those choices can leave fans caught in the middle.