How Celeste became an icon of trans gaming
If you ask people about trans video games, you’ll usually find that the same few names recur: games with trans characters, or trans player options, or that focus on a trans storyline.
And then there’s one outlier – Celeste. WORDS BY ELI CUGINI HEADER DESIGN BY YOSEF PHELAN Celeste is one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved platformers of the past decade; players are still making discoveries and accomplishing incredible feats in the game six years after its release. (A recent favourite?
EuniverseCat’s minimum-grabs speedrun, which took three weeks). But it’s not an ostensibly very trans game. It’s mostly about a woman climbing a mountain.
There’s a short cutscene where the protagonist has a miniature trans flag on her desk, but you only see that if you complete the Farewell DLC, which is a very tricky, long DLC that less than 20 per cent of players finish.
