Developer Red Candle Games earlier today announced that Devotion, the first-person horror video game released for and pulled from Steam in 2019 after pressure resulting from a Winnie the Pooh meme which referenced Chinese president Xi Jinping, would be releasing on CD Projekt-owned GOG.com on Friday, December 18th. Unfortunately, that looks like it will not come to pass as GOG.com announced just hours later that it would not, in fact, release the game and delisted it immediately.
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The developer previously apologized for the meme, which was explained as an art asset that wasn’t properly vetted before the game’s official release. When it learned that it existed, the developer updated the game to remove it. Even so, it has yet to return to Steam, and with today’s kerfuffle, it continues to seem like it never will.
You can check out the original announcement from Red Candle Games earlier today below:
Hello friends, we want to share with youโ Red Candle will publish #้้กDevotion on Dec 18 on GOG.https://t.co/dlC6qzBiHx
The content and the price of the re-release remains the same, for $16.99 / โฌ13.99
Thank you for your trust and support. We wish you a happy end of the year pic.twitter.com/peVPd7cyVo
โ redcandlegames (@redcandlegames) December 16, 2020
As noted above, hours after being announced that it would release on GOG.com, the digital storefront reversed course. “Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG,” the official Twitter account shared. “After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.”
Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.
โ GOG.COM (@GOGcom) December 16, 2020
Devotion from Red Candle Games is not currently available on any platform. If the GOG.com reversal is a PR stunt, it is a poor one, and it seems unlikely. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the title right here.
What do you make of the Devotion rerelease announcement and subsequent immediate delisting today? Have you had a chance to play the title at all? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!
