In 2019, Red Candle Games released the horror game Devotion, which earned relatively positive reviews from fans of the genre. Unfortunately, Devotion‘s shelf-life was short-lived. Thanks to a joke in Devotion that appeared to make fun of Chinese president Xi Jinping, the game was pulled from sale. Over a year later, it seemed as though Devotion would be getting a new lease on life through GOG, only for the digital marketplace to reverse its decision at the last minute.
GOG pulled Devotion from sale “after receiving many messages from gamers.” Presumably, these messages were from people who were upset about how Devotion supposedly mocked Xi Jinping, though clarification wasn’t provided. Now in a new statement, Devotion developer Red Candle Games has said that it is “willing to understand and respect” GOG’s controversial decision not to sell the horror game on its platform.
Red Candle Games also issued an apology to its fans who were looking forward to playing the game. After all, it’s quite likely that there are many horror game fans interested in playing Devotion who were unable to download it prior to it originally pulled from sale. In the meantime, it seems as though Devotion could come back one way or another, as Red Candle Games has said it “won’t stop striving” and referred to GOG’s decision as a “difficult predicament to overcome,” implying that there may be hope for the game to be re-released somewhere at some point down the line.
While GOG’s decision is disappointing for horror game fans, the bright side is that Devotion is technically available in some capacities. Harvard University has preserved the game, plus a physical version was released in Taiwan. This still means that the number of people who can access Devotion is very limited, but it’s better than the game being completely unavailable to everyone.
In the wake of GOG’s decision, other independent developers have spoken out in support of Red Candle Games. This includes Glass Bottom Games founder Megan Fox, who announced that she would no longer be releasing her game SkateBIRD on GOG as a sign of solidarity with Red Candle Games.
It’s unclear if Devotion will ever become widely available to the public again, but hopefully future projects from Red Candle Games can avoid running into this much trouble. It was recently confirmed that Red Candle Games is working on a new project, so it will be interesting to see if it shares any similarities with Devotion or if it goes in an entirely different direction.
Devotion is not available for sale.
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