Controversial Xbox Game Reportedly Being Removed From Owners' Libraries

By Tyler Fischer

A controversial Xbox game is reportedly being removed from the libraries of those that bought and downloaded it on their Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X via the Microsoft Store. There's a niche market on a variety of platforms, including Xbox, for games that dish out, in the case of Xbox, easy Achievement points. While Achievement hunting isn't as common and popular as it used to be, some still pursue it. To this end, there's a whole market of games that are made for the sole purpose of dishing out easy Achievements. There are also games that bend digital storefront policies to sell multiple copies of their game to Achievement hunters using something called "language stacks." This brings us to One Step After Fall, the controversial game in question. 

At the moment of publishing, One Step After Fall has not been removed from the digital Xbox storefront, however, a few of its language stacks have. For those that don't know, language stacks refer to when a developer or publisher releases the same exact game, but with different subtitles and Achievements. The reason for doing this is to lure Achievement hunters into buying your game more than once to get this new set of easy Achievements. It's unclear if this directly breaches the seller agreement on Xbox, but Microsoft is cracking down on it nonetheless. 

As noted, the original game, which dishes out 1,000G in 15 minutes, is still up for sale, but both "One Step After Fall (Espanol)" and "One Step After Fall (Deutsch)" have been removed from sale on the Xbox Store. Further, Xbox fans are reporting these versions have been removed from their libraries. According to these users, the normal refund process for these versions does not work, leaving them short $4.99. However, you can apparently get a refund through Xbox support if you want. 

All of this has happened following Xbox's Chris Charla saying Xbox would look into the issue back in March. Since then, Xbox has not said anything about the matter in an official capacity, nor has Chris Charla. The developer of the game has though. The Bergson's Games Studios has revealed they've now cancelled the PC version of the game following these delistings and will no longer be making use of this language stacks loophole.

For more coverage on all things Xbox -- including specific coverage on the Xbox One, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles, and Xbox Game Pass as well -- click here. Meanwhile, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think. Was this the right call by Xbox or overreach?

H/T, True Achievements.

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