Celeste and TowerFall have disappeared from the Xbox store, and the studio behind them says that was deliberate. “For those who’re asking, yes we delisted Celeste and TowerFall on XBox,” Celeste director Maddy Thorson posted on Bluesky this morning. “We did this to support the BDS boycott.”
Thorson’s studio, now called Extremely OK Games, released Celeste in 2018 and TowerFall Ascension in 2013. Both games are still on sale elsewhere. Celeste is listed on Steam at $19.99 as of this afternoon.
Players noticed the missing store pages before the studio said why
The delisting was spotted first, and the reason came later. A thread on r/xbox calling the removal “mysterious” had 135 upvotes before Thorson’s post, and its top reply guessed at an ownership transfer, since the studio’s own website still linked to the Xbox store page. The Bluesky post settled it a few hours later and had passed 4,000 likes within two hours.
Beloved platformer Celeste mysteriously delisted from Xbox store | TrueAchievements
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BDS has listed Microsoft, including Xbox, as a boycott target since 2025
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement added Microsoft to its list of priority boycott targets in 2025, citing the company’s cloud and AI contracts with Israel’s military, and later extended the call to Xbox consoles, games and Game Pass. Microsoft said in September 2025 that it had cut off a unit of Israel’s defense ministry from some of its services after an internal review. Celeste is the highest-profile game so far to be pulled from an Xbox storefront by its own developer over the campaign.
The studio has not said whether the delisting is permanent
Thorson’s post is one sentence long and does not say whether the games will return, or what happens for people who already own them on Xbox. Delisted games normally stay playable for existing owners, but the studio has not addressed that. The timing is notable for another reason: a day earlier, Thorson’s next game, City of None, was announced for Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch in 2027 during Nintendo’s Indie World showcase.
