Acclaimed Taiwanese horror game Devotion, which was pulled from Steam shortly after its release last February following the discovery of a controversial art asset, has finally resurfaced and will be getting a physical release – albeit only in Taiwan for the time being.
Devotion is the work of developer Red Candle Games, previously responsible for acclaimed point-and-click horror Detention, and follows the plight of a troubled young family over seven years in a single, cramped apartment in 1980s Taiwan – a journey that builds outward from a core of PT-style first-person horror, melding shifting architecture and striking visual metaphor to create an experience that’s ultimately as tender as it terrifying.
Unfortunately, shortly after release, an unflattering reference to China’s president Xi Jinping was discovered in-game. The outcry among Chinese players was immediate, and the fallout saw Red Candle’s account shut down on China’s enormously popular social media platform Weibo, the cancelation of its publisher’s business license by the Chinese government, and, finally, the game’s removal from Steam, despite its strong critical reception.
還願DEVOTION – 預告片 Watch on YouTube
As the months drew on, many were eager to know if Red Candle’s situation had changed sufficiently to enable the acclaimed game to return to digital stores. The studio addressed these queries in a statement posted to Twitter last July (and in a slightly spoiler-heavy conversation with Eurogamer last year), in which it once again offered its “most sincere apology to all impacted team and personnel” as a result of the “art asset incident”.