Big Walk won’t come to Xbox: Untitled Goose Game studio cites boycott
House House will not release its co-op game on Xbox as long as Microsoft is a target of the BDS boycott movement. The studio admits it is disappointing players.
Symbolic image · Photo: Der. Bellemer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Indie studio House House, known for Untitled Goose Game, will not release its co-op adventure Big Walk on Xbox consoles. In a statement published on 15 October, it attributes the decision to the BDS movement’s boycott call against Microsoft. The studio would like Xbox players to have the game, “but not until Microsoft and/or Xbox have been removed as BDS boycott targets”, Gaming.net quotes from the statement. The studio writes that it is disappointed too, but made the decision “with the belief that meaningful change can be made in the world”.
The BDS movement lists Microsoft as a priority boycott target because, by its account, the company provides cloud and AI services to the Israeli military via its Azure platform. Its call ranges from cancelling the Game Pass subscription service to shunning all Microsoft Gaming games and hardware.
Big Walk launched on 4 August through publisher Panic for PC and Mac, PlayStation 5 and Switch 2; according to the game’s FAQ, no other platforms are planned. According to Pure Xbox, it is among the highest-rated games of the year on Metacritic. Untitled Goose Game was still released on Xbox One in 2019.