Unused features

This page lists features in Celeste found in the game's files but not used in the game itself. This page does not cover ideas or items from pre-release builds that have been deleted later.

Event/Demo Modes

There are two hidden modes in the game: Event Mode and Demo Mode. Event Mode was meant to be a sort of early access version, possibly to be played during gaming events before the game's official release.

Conceivably, Demo Mode might have been a scrapped idea of implementing a demo version of the game, accessible before the player bought it. Both modes are inaccessible without editing the game config files or using mods that allow to change the game's build.

Unused level modes/metadata

• Underwater mode: causes the entire room to appear underwater. This feature was most likely intended for Reflection's early development when the chapter was meant to be mainly an underwater stage. As the rooms were deleted, the mode remained unused.
• Theo in booster: allows players to enter a bubble while carrying the Theo Crystal. This feature has never seen the light of day, as there are no bubbles in the crystal checkpoints of Mirror Temple.

Unused stylegrounds

• Planets: an early version of Farewell's planet background, which appears to fit the name more accurately, as the background looks more like actual planets, unlike the version in the level, where they appear as floating starfish creatures.
• Dream background: an old version of the Old Site background that can be seen on Polygon's teaser. It's still possible to use it via modding by using the "dreamstars" effect. It was replaced by a metadata feature that enables a new, more detailed background.
• Tentacles effect: a styleground effect that shows a background version of the tentacles entity in Chapter 6. Similarly to the entity, they move away from a player, however they do it constantly instead of depending on the node Madeline reaches. This background unfortunately doesn't work properly with vertical scrolling, causing the game to crash.

Unused entities

• goldenBlock: a floating yellow block with the Golden Strawberries on it. They would appear only when the player reaches a room while carrying a Golden Berry. It was eventually replaced with an alternate ending leading to the Golden Room in Farewell. Upon interacting, it behaves very similarly to a Starjump Block from Reflection and Core.
• glassBlock: a dark blue glass block with colorful shapes on it. It's made purely for decorative purposes, and it creates a wavy effect on the blocks in front of it. They were used in old builds of Farewell. They can still be accessed through modding.
• Moon jumpthrough: an unused version of the semisolid, which fits the aesthetics of Farewell. The actual chapter uses wooden semisolids instead, making this entity remain unused in the game files.
• Nega Block: a block with a placeholder texture that removes dash refills when Madeline is standing on it. They were most likely meant to be used in Core or for testing.
• Unused Flying Golden Strawberry: a copy of the original Winged Golden Strawberry, which behaves very similarly to a regular Golden Strawberry. The used version is strangely named "memorialTextController" for the sole purpose of making datamining more difficult.
• dreamHeartGem: a wavier Crystal Heart variant that only appears blue, no matter the side it's in. It was most likely intended for the poem in Old Site. It cannot be collected.
• fakeHeart: a Crystal Heart variant that behaves very similarly to the regular Crystal Heart, yet it vanishes for a short time when Madeline dashes through it, recharging her dash similarly to Dash Refills. The color of the heart shuffles between blue, red, and gold, most likely depending on its initial position.
• Alternate trigger spikes: although the vanilla game only uses growing dust, there are trigger spike types for every spike texture, but they are never shown in the actual game. The regular trigger spikes, however, were used in beta builds of the game before the dust tendrils were drawn.

Unused graphics

• Full Clear stamp: if the player would have gotten every full clear, the flag on the file stamp would change from red to yellow. It was removed in 1.3.0.0, but the graphic can still be seen in the game files.
• Dashes icon: a leftover icon from a mechanic intended to track dashes.
• Journal page: in Atlases/Gameplay/objects/journal there are a few frames of a journal entity intended for a special NPC planned during Celeste's development. The sprites remained unused after the NPC was removed.
• Gate borders: the folder Atlases/Gameplay/objects/switchgate has a sprite named border.png which seems to be intended for the gate when all touch switches are activated.
• Unlit yellow torch: Atlases/Gameplay/objects/temple has a sprite for a deactivated yellow torch. In the game, yellow torches are always lit.
• Diving board: the object file has two images of a diving board that was never used in the game. It's speculated that it might have been planned for the Granny cutscene in Golden Ridge.
• Mr. Bones door: a thin, wooden door or gate with a rather peculiar name. Its planned use is unknown.
• Snowberry: a small green stem that sticks out from a pile of snow. Its intention might have been to hint towards a hidden Strawberry.
• Unused downwards arrow: Atlases/Gui/controls/press.png has a small pixel-y arrow pointing down that's most likely a leftover from early builds.
• Assist Mode stamp: Atlases/Gui/assistmodestamp.png has an old Assist Mode stamp that was replaced in the Farewell update with a small badge on the side of the file. The old graphic was replaced by the bird stamp you get after finishing Chapter 9.
• No Kevin Block lights: one of the frames in the Kevin Block sprites has no blue borders, implying there might have been Kevin Blocks that were impossible to move.
• Old Core Blocks: Atlases/Gameplay/Objects/BumpBlock contains old sprites of Core Blocks. The sprites used in-game are named "BumpBlockNew".
• Dream Orb: Atlases/Gameplay/Objects/dreamorb contains an orb that potentially was an old activator for Dream Blocks. A very similar sprite can be seen on Polygon's 2016 Teaser.
• Eye bombs: Atlases/Gameplay/Objects/eyebomb features a sprite of the old turret from a beta build of Mirror Temple. The turrets would eventually evolve into Pufferfish in Farewell.
• Old gondola: there are extra frames of the gondola in Golden Ridge, in which it has a slightly more stretched shape.
• Copper frame: a copper variant of the resort mirror is available in Atlases/Gameplay/objects/mirror/resortframe_copper.png.
• Starjump tiles: an unused tileset named starjump.png can be found, although it's just a copy of Reflection graphics. The actual Starjump Blocks are entities.
• Template tiles: a template file can also be found in the tileset folder. It's not used in-game, but instead it was used for creating tilesets.
• Golden Strawberry seeds: in the Golden Strawberry sprites, seed frames can be seen, but they look identical to normal seeds. They are likely leftovers from copying and editing the graphics of a normal berry.
• Beta Oshiro: an old sprite of the Oshiro boss can be found in the characters/oshiro/New Folder file, which shows all frames in one image.
• starMorph: several frames of Madeline's sprites that look like she's about to transform into a star can be seen. They're old graphics as Feathers were originally planned to be stars.

Unused portrait images

• Madeline phone images: there are several unused images with Madeline having a normal and surprised expression when talking on the phone during a cutscene in Old Site.
• Mom's portraits: in the game, Madeline's mom appears only during the phone cutscene in Old Site, but there are images of her expressions without holding the phone.
• Most of Theo's mirror expressions are unused, including nailedit, yolo, and worried.
• The only used Madeline's mirror expressions are "determined" and "determineclosed". The rest can still be found in the game files.

Unused Music and Sound Effects

• Area 1 Demo: a chiptune-y track composed by Lena Raine that was the first version of First Steps, before the track was rewritten from scratch. Despite that, it's surprisingly a part of the B-Sides soundtrack.
• music/mus_lvl6_thefall_loop is a duplicate of the third variant of the Reflection theme, with one of the synths lacking in the background.
• char/dialogue/secret_character: a custom-made Rickroll out of Madeline's dialogue "voice". It's left in the game's FMOD project by Kevin Regamey as a joke or prank.
• fluff_tendril_recede: an unused sound of the dust trigger spikes retracting back. It hints that they likely were meant to appear temporarily, but the sound effect never plays in the game.
• ui/game/increment_dashcount: a quiet click sound that seems to have been used for the game tracking the number of dashes a player has used in a chapter.

Unused FMOD parameters

• if_bubble: a parameter that can be found in the Joy of Remembrance soundtrack. It doesn't seem to be doing anything, and Kevin himself mentioned he doesn't remember what it was supposed to be. According to the name, it could be an event caused during the transition at the end of Power Source.
• too_damn_fast: a special parameter that was meant to transition to the 3rd and 4th segments of Farewell if the player ended up going really fast. It is functional but never mentioned in the game's code, rendering it unused.

Music differences

• In the game's OST, In The Mirror has an extra music layer that originally was meant to appear when a Seeker is in its aggressive state.
• The Farewell theme has an outro at the end, which can be heard in the OST, however, it's cut in the game due to the last segment looping before it happens.
• Final Defiance features cassette ticking noises through the majority of the theme, which all depend on the Cassette Blocks' tempo, but in the OST they keep ticking at a constant, specific speed, as well as the sounds being more echo-y, creating a more gloomy and unsettling atmosphere.

Other

• A go_to_past event was meant to be used in the first cutscene in Farewell, most likely to go back to the bright background.
• A dash counter was meant to appear on the chapter card, showing the player's lowest dash count in the chapter. The statistic eventually was removed from the chapter card, as it could have caused unnecessary confusion, but the assets and the mechanic are still left out in the files. It can be activated with the Dash Count Mod.