“Devotion” has won over horror fans with its atmospheric ingenuity. Image: Red Candle Games via AFP Relaxnews
Explorative horror game “Devotion” has been hailed for its storytelling technique but criticized by Chinese-language user reviews after a piece of in-game art was not replaced prior to release.
Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games revisited the 1980s, a time of political upheaval for the newly independent country, and one that informed its debut, “Detention”, in atmospheric horror “Devotion”, a Feb. 19 release that became one of the week’s bestsellers on dominant digital retail site Steam.
Players become the father of a family of three, walking around an apparently deserted apartment through various haunted transformations.
A sizable portion of Steam’s user reviewers hailed the chilling game for its powerfully unsettling atmosphere, broad emotional range, accuracy of historical cultural motifs and innovative extension of first-person perspective horror conventions.
Unfortunately, as Red Candle tells it, some of the game’s placeholder art contained “internet slang”; the material appeared to mock China’s head of state, comparing him to A. A. Milne’s fictional ursine character, one whose mention had already been banned in China, for related reasons, by the time Disney family movie “Christopher Robin” was released in 2018.
Though “Devotion” initially received a very positive 95 percent rating from Steam users, said art was not replaced by the time of release, leading to a slew of negative Chinese-language ratings after its discovery.
Red Candle subsequently amended the placeholder art and issued a sequence of apologies and explanations; users who do not receive game files through Steam’s copy-protection mechanism would not receive the update automatically.
Steam*
1. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm
2. Devotion
3. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
4. Far Cry New Dawn
5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege – Year 4 Pass
*Steam chart based on revenue rather than units.
Humble Store
1. Dark Souls III Deluxe Edition
2. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm
3. Gamemaker Studio 2 Desktop
4. Vampyr
5. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
GamersGate EU
1. Resident Evil 2/Biohazard RE:2 – Deluxe Edition
2. Wreckfest
3. Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – Back to Ubersreik
4. Devil May Cry HD Collection
5. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
Fanatical
1. Festival Mystery Bundle (up to 10 mystery games)
2. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI Gold + Gathering Storm
3. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI Gold Edition
4. Colossus Bundle (up to 11 games inc. Sniper Ghost Warrior Trilogy, STALKER Clear Sky, Epistory, Vermintide)
5. War for the Overworld
GOG
1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year edition
2. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales
3. Anno 1404: Gold Edition
4. Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete
5. Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition
Itchio’s Most Popular
1. New Message
2. The Night
3. Kibus
4. Cursed Soul
5. The ER
JB
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