Untitled Goose Game developer House House launched Big Walk, its multiplayer cooperative puzzle-adventure game, on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, and Mac in August to critical acclaim. Since then, players have asked the studio to release the game on Xbox Series X/S, the only console absent from its launch lineup. Today, House House released an explanation stating that Big Walk is not on Xbox in accordance with the Palestinian-led BDS boycott against Microsoft.
“We have made the decision not to release Big Walk on Xbox, in accordance with the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement call to boycott Microsoft, and their designation of Microsoft Games (and Xbox) as a priority boycott target,” the statement reads.
House House later writes that it would love for players to experience Big Walk on Xbox, but notes that won’t happen until Microsoft and/or Xbox have been removed as BDS boycott targets.
BDS is an international boycott movement “for freedom, justice, and equality,” and “upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity,” according to the organization. BDS states that Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. The movement, which has been around since 2005, is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement and urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law, which BDS says the country has been noncompliant with since 1948.
As for the Microsoft and Xbox boycott target prioritization, BDS says on its website that “Microsoft is perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid regime, and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. […] Microsoft partners with the apartheid regime of Israel and its prison system. It provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and AI services that are central to accelerating Israel’s genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. After 34 years of deep complicity with Israel’s military, the Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements of its genocide and apartheid regime.”
The BDS movement also calls on people to boycott Microsoft’s gaming products, including canceling Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, boycotting Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Call of Duty, and boycotting all Microsoft Gaming products, including Xbox-branded consoles, headsets, and all games published by Microsoft-owned publishing labels.
House House closes its statement, which you can read in full via the image below, stating, “We’ve made this decision with the belief that meaningful change can be made in the world, that coordinated collective action can confront even the most powerful interests, and that one day, Palestine will be free.”
Here is the studio’s full statement:
Big Walk sold one million copies in less than a week. Read Game Informer’s Big Walk review here.